The cuts made to the so-called “foreign aid” agency USAID (which doesn’t actually have humanitarianism as its primary purpose) in the first days of the Trump 2.0 administration affected various global vaccine initiatives, many of which were pet projects of self-styled philanthropist Bill Gates.
Via Reuters (emphasis added):
Soon after his January 20 inauguration, President Donald Trump moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, cutting more than 80% of contracts and freezing billions of dollars for everything from emergency food assistance to malaria prevention.
The Trump administration, led by the State Department, is reviewing what kinds of foreign aid will remain under its “America First” policy, with a list of around 30 global health projects for consideration, one of the sources said…
[The list includes] rganizations such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, among others. They are on the shortlist for review by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump. The U.S. gives around $300 million annually to Gavi, and more than $1 billion to the Global Fund.
Several projects under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are also on the review shortlist, the source said.
In an attempt to ensure these projects remain federally funded, Gates has reportedly been quietly lobbying the administration behind the scenes to protect the billions that flow to his “non-profit” ventures.
Putting aside the ultimate question of why Bill Gates isn’t under a federal prison, why do we allow creatures like this to slink around the White House trying to convince Trump, our duly elected president, and his lieutenants to reinstate his own personal scheme that for some reason require public subsidy even though Gates has a net worth of $108 billion?
Related: WATCH: MAHA Envoy DECIMATES ‘Reporters and Lobbyists’ at Health Care Summit
Continuing:
Bill Gates is personally lobbying Trump administration officials to keep funding health programs worldwide, from childhood vaccination to HIV treatment, and warning that his foundation cannot step in to fill gaps, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters...
“Bill was recently in Washington D.C. meeting with decision makers to discuss the life-saving impact of U.S. international assistance and the need for a strategic plan to protect the world’s most vulnerable while safeguarding America’s health and security,” said a spokesperson for the Gates Foundation, his charitable organization.
Gates told the officials he met with that his foundation cannot replace the role of the U.S. government, the sources said. Gates Foundation directors have also said publicly that no foundation has that capability.
Let this serve as our friendly periodic reminder that billionaire “philanthropists” aren’t really playing with their own money; it’s house money.
As I reported on several years ago, it came to light well into the first Trump administration that Gates had gone to Trump back in December 2016, when he was president-elect, to pressure him not to look into vaccine safety, which the president was reportedly considering doing at the time at the behest of now-HHS Secretary RFK Jr.
Related: SHOCKER: Bill Gates Met With Trump, Pressured Him Not to Investigate Vaccine Safety
According to Gates’ account of the encounter: “In both of those two meetings, [Trump] asked me if vaccines weren’t a bad thing, because he was considering a commission to look into ill effects of vaccines. And I said, ‘No, that’s a dead end. That would be a bad thing, don’t do that.’”
We all know what happened four years later.
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