The assessment, shared exclusively with the Free Beacon, follows mainstream media claims that cuts to global health funding will endanger life-saving programs
Just 40 percent of the $110 billion the United States has invested into global HIV/AIDS prevention since 2003 actually went toward on-the-ground deliveries of life-saving medical supplies, with at least two recipients using more than $30 billion in taxpayer money to pay “exorbitant” executive salaries and push “leftwing ideology,” a State Department audit found.
When the Trump administration unveiled its “America First Global Health Strategy” earlier this month, it contended the nation’s “foreign assistance programs are deeply broken” and often plagued by fraud, mismanagement, and waste. An internal State Department review of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) found around 60 percent of America’s investment is lost to overhead costs, steep executive salaries, and in some cases, radical programming that has included a “Transgender Day of Remembrance” and a “decolonizing development series,” according to internal documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
“The United States’ health foreign assistance programs are inefficient,” the State Department said in its publicly available review of U.S. foreign assistance. “Data shows that only about 40% of PEPFAR’s budget goes directly to finance on-the-ground service delivery, specifically health commodities and health workers. Of PEPFAR’s $4.7 billion bilateral budget, only approximately $1.0 billion goes to support medical commodity purchases and their related transport and delivery.”
The Trump administration temporarily froze the $6 billion Congress authorized for PEPFAR’s fiscal year 2025 budget during its halt on foreign aid earlier this year before releasing $2.9 billion last month. While mainstream media outlets like CNN and the New York Times have published dire warnings about the State Department’s effort to rein in spending on foreign assistance programs, citing those who work for organizations that receive PEPFAR aid to claim the cuts will hamper their ability to deliver life-saving services, those stories do not yet account for the administration’s recent findings. The State Department’s audit uncovered two particular PEPFAR implementing partners—RTI International and Chemonics—that have used U.S. taxpayer funding to award their executives million-dollar salaries and promote far-left politics.
RTI International took in more than $13 billion from the U.S. taxpayer in 2022 and 2023, accounting for 84 percent of the company’s revenue. More than 30 percent of these funds came from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the now-defunct foreign assistance body that long faced accusations of funding radical ideologies around the globe. RTI International used that money to prove those accusations right.
The State Department in its audit found RTI International’s publishing arm “released a report touting America’s ‘racial awakening’” and cited disgraced critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi. The report promoted such ideas as “white supremacy culture” being “evident in all facets of society, including research work.”
“Liberation is when all people are free of the oppressive systems of colonialism and white supremacy,” RTI International professed.
The company also “celebrated ‘Transgender Day of Remembrance,’” according to the State Department review, with the organization’s personnel offering a training session called, “Moving from Ally to Advocate for Transgender and Non-Binary Employees.” In another instance, RTI Press published a report “warning of ‘cisnormativity’ and ‘transantagonism,’” the internal State Department documents show.
“The organization’s CEO made a whopping $1.2-million salary in 2023, while four other executives made salaries of over $800,000 and five earned more than $500,000,” the State Department’s report continued.
Chemonics, a for-profit company with 5,000 employees in 100 countries around the world, has taken in $20 billion in taxpayer funds through USAID.
The State Department noted in its audit that Chemonics “hosted a ‘decolonizing development series’ and ‘a panel featuring LGBTQI activists and organizations.’” It maintains at least 22 “working groups” tasked with “embedding” diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives throughout the company. Chemonics advocates for what it describes as “inclusive development” and states “its programs are ‘grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems.’”
Chemonics also offered a six-figure salary for a “DEI director position,” the State Department found, and received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2025 Corporate Equality Index. That score came from hitting checkpoints like providing “four LGBTQ+ internal training elements (including an intersectionality training),” having “at least five distinct LGBTQ+ efforts of Outreach or Engagement to Broader LGBTQ+ Community,” and offering “Gender Transition Guidelines and at least one additional transgender inclusive policy or practice for its employees.”
For Simon Hankinson, a former Foreign Service officer who now serves as a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the two companies serve as examples of how nongovernment entities can take advantage of administrative bloat and push destructive agendas.
“These companies exemplify the moniker ‘beltway bandit,’” Hankinson told the Free Beacon. “For years, they have used billions in public funds to export the very worst of America’s woke nonsense, from critical race theory to gender ideology. The only ‘oppressive system’ here is the continued fleecing of the taxpayer for projects that produce nothing of benefit to foreign audiences, let alone the Americans who pay for them.”
An RTI International representative defended the organization’s work in a statement provided to the Free Beacon.
“RTI is proud to partner with the current Administration and State Department to promote national security and other Administration priorities,” the statement reads. “In all our engagements on the behalf of the federal government, RTI has a long track record of sound financial stewardship of taxpayer dollars. We strive to be a cost-effective and efficient partner in all that we do. International development activities have traditionally represented no more than a quarter of our work. We are a large, independent scientific research institute headquartered in North Carolina, delivering comprehensive research and technical services across many disciplines to a wide range of industry and government clients.”
Chemonics did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.
