The 2025 PEPFAR Disruption and US Soft Power in the Global South

The IPDGC is a leader in research, practice, training, and 
innovative thinking in the areas of global communication and public 
diplomacy.The Institute is based at the Elliott School of International Affairs within the George Washington University.

Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication

Examining how disruptions to PEPFAR in 2025 affected international public opinion of the US, using Gallup and amfAR data.

School of Media & Public Affairs

Abstract:What has been the impact of the disruptions and cuts to US foreign aid in 2025 on the international standing of the US among mass publics? I examine this question using statistical analysis with a focus on a major US foreign aid program: the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). PEPFAR is often held up as a major example of successful US “health diplomacy,” in addition to its well-established positive impact on global health. Using data on international opinion about the United States from the Gallup World Poll and on PEPFAR monitoring, evaluation and reporting (MER) from the NGO amfAR, I find a major adverse impact on opinion about the US. I compare PEPFAR recipient countries with other non-recipient countries in the Global South. I explicitly account for the wide variation in the degree to which PEPFAR countries were actually affected (some were not) by aid disruptions. Accounting for exposure to the funding freeze, the damage to US standing was large. It ranges from a drop of -2 percentage points of opinion (conservative, on average) to -20 percentage points (e.g., Lesotho). The drop outside the extremes of the distribution (10th – 90th percentile) is more than -11 percentage points. This drop in positive sentiment towards the US appears to effectively erase the goodwill generated by PEPFAR over its decades of existence, and is over and above the general drop in US approval observed across the Global South in 2025.Presentor: Benjamin E. Goldsmith is a Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. His research is in the areas of international relations, comparative foreign policy, and atrocity forecasting. He is the author of the book Imitation in International Relations: Observational Learning, Analogies, and Foreign Policy in Russia and Ukraine, as well as articles in leading academic journals including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Politics, Political Psychology, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and World Politics. His research has been supported by grants from the Australian Government’s Responsibility to Protect Fund and the Australian Research Council (ARC), including an ARC Future Fellowship (2015-18) and featured in The Economist, New York Times, Scientific American, Washington Post's Monkey Cage and elsewhere. He is the founding President of the Australian Society for Quantitative Political Science, and a member of the executives of the Pacific International Politics Conference and the Asian Political Methodology meeting. He is an editor of the Japanese Journal of Political Science and on the editorial boards of International Relations of the Asia-Pacific and the Journal of East Asian Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Michigan 2001) and an M.A. in Russian Area Studies (Georgetown 1995). Before joining ANU in 2017, he taught at other universities in Australia, Singapore, and the United States. <a href="https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/ben-goldsmith/" title="https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/ben-goldsmith/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Read more </a>

The 2025 PEPFAR Disruption and US Soft Power in the Global South

More events from Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication

Discover more events from Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, from Government to other experiences you might love.

Still looking for the right event?

Explore all events in Washington and filter by date, category, and more to find the perfect fit.

The 2025 PEPFAR Disruption and US Soft Power in the Global South

More events from Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication

Discover more events from Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, from Government to other experiences you might love.

You might also like...

Browse more events with different dates, prices, and formats to find your next great experience.

Still looking for the right event?

Explore all events in Washington and filter by date, category, and more to find the perfect fit.