Bill Gates, renowned as the co-founder of Microsoft, has increasingly become a prominent voice in advocating for climate change awareness and various progressive causes. Recently, he raised alarms about a potential rise in preventable child deaths, attributing this grim outlook to reductions in global health funding, notably decisions made during the Trump Administration.

In a recent discussion with Politico, Gates expressed concern that, for the first time in a quarter-century, the number of preventable child fatalities is expected to rise. According to projections from the Gates Foundation, there could be an increase of 200,000 deaths compared to the previous year. Gates pointed to the significant cuts in foreign aid by the Trump administration and other affluent nations earlier this year as the primary cause of this disturbing development.

“There were sudden and massive cuts — you just can’t deny that’s led to lots of deaths,” Gates remarked, underscoring the alleged impact of these funding reductions. Despite the Trump administration’s disagreement with this assessment, Gates is committed to collaborating with them to secure increased funding in the future. He noted having constructive discussions with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to tackle this pressing problem.

Breitbart News has reported on Gates’ previous criticisms of Elon Musk and the Trump Administration for their decisions to cut aid funding:

Gates highlighted the detrimental effects of these cuts, especially in areas like northern Nigeria, where child mortality rates exceed 10 percent before the age of five. He detailed the sudden dismissal of personnel and the halt in funding for critical programs such as malaria prevention, food distribution, and tuberculosis detection during the year’s first half.

As Breitbart News reported, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in March that 83 percent of the programs directly funded and administered by USAID had been canceled, as their funding was deemed as antithetical to the core interests of the United States.

“The 5,200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio said at the time.

Gates pointed out that the cuts have had the most negative impact in regions like northern Nigeria, where over 10 percent of children die before reaching the age of five. He specifically mentioned the abrupt firing of personnel and the cessation of funding for malaria prevention, food distribution, and tuberculosis detection in the first half of the year.

Despite the Trump administration’s rejection of the link between aid cuts and increased deaths, Gates remains hopeful that his discussions with President Trump and Secretary Rubio will lead to a return to previous levels of aid. He stressed the importance of the next six months in determining the U.S. Congress’s role in setting global health budgets and shaping new compacts for poor countries.