The Trump administration will block organizations that receive US foreign aid from subsidizing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and what the administration calls “gender ideology”. The new policy will affect about $30bn in foreign assistance.
The decision, confirmed to the Guardian by a state department spokesperson on Thursday morning, marks a dramatic expansion of the so-called “Mexico City policy”, which blocks non-US non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from receiving some forms of US funding if they provide abortion-related services or advocate for abortion rights overseas. Now, that policy – which abortion rights supporters call the “global gag rule” – will also apply to international organizations and US-based NGOs operating abroad.
“President Trump continues to deliver on his promise to end woke foreign assistance,” the state department spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
First introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, the Mexico City policy is typically rescinded whenever a Democrat wins the White House and reinstated whenever a Republican wins. Usually, the policy applies only to dollars that have been set aside for family planning assistance, which account for about $600m worth of aid.
However, during his first administration, Trump extended the policy to apply to all global health assistance, changing the terms of an estimated $7.3bn worth of aid. The effect was ruinous, advocacy groups say. MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries, has said that the policy led it to shutter services in countries like Uganda, Madagascar and Nepal.
“You then end up with a whole generation of women and girls who are growing up in this stigmatized environment with no notion of where to go to find out information about their health and their rights,” said Sarah Shaw, MSI Reproductive Choices’ associate director of advocacy. “Any effort to expand this is even more catastrophic.”
After returning to power in January 2025, Trump reinstated his version of the Mexico City policy. Now, his newest expansion of the policy will affect not only money earmarked for global health aid, but vast swathes of foreign assistance.
It will also block groups from using foreign assistance funds if they pay for what the state department spokesperson called “abortion as a form of family planning”. The spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for clarification about how that requirement differs from past versions of the Mexico City policy.
The new Mexico City policy decision deepens the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on DEI efforts, and rights for transgender and nonbinary people. (“Gender ideology” is the rightwing shorthand for the idea that gender is fluid and trans and non-binary people exist.) Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders that generally ended the federal government’s support for DEI initiatives, proclaimed that there are only two genders and attacked government efforts to recognize trans people. His administration has also undermined research that worked to further racial and gender equity.
Fox News Digital first reported on the news of the extended Mexico City policy.
The state department will officially release three final rules outlining the new policy on Friday, when thousands of anti-abortion activists are expected to gather in Washington DC for an annual gathering called the March for Life.
Without those final rules, experts say, it is difficult to know how the policy will work or how many people it will affect.
“The impacts could be endless. They could have impacts in ways we can’t even imagine right now,” said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. “This policy not only exports harsh US abortion bans around the world – we’re also exporting ideologically driven mandates to countries and the world that are anti-human rights, anti-health, anti-equity. It’s just devastating.”
