Why Sen. John Curtis says Utahns should care about global health

SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. John Curtis said the U.S. still has a vested interest in promoting global health, even as the Trump administration has made public efforts to curb spending on programs like USAID and others.

The Utah Republican said Congress is pushing back on efforts to roll back funding already appropriated by the legislative branch, after speaking at a panel on global health at the University of Utah on Friday. But he warned that given the growing national debt, lawmakers will need to be careful about how they spend money promoting international health and economic development.

"There are some who say, 'Look, I can live here in the United States, and I can ignore what's happening around the world, and I shouldn't have, nor do I have a responsibility in that,'" Curtis said.

He noted that around 500,000 jobs in Utah are connected with global economies through trade, and the state does some $27 billion worth of trade with the rest of the world annually.

"To think that somehow a disease outbreak in another country doesn't impact me here in the United States is foolish," he said.

Curtis joined former Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, in a private meeting with university and Utah leaders in global health Friday. After the meeting, he told KSL those working on the ground stressed the need for more resources.

"I think many of them are out in the field seeing the need and realizing how many more resources are actually needed," he said.

In brief public remarks, Curtis compared requests for more foreign aid resources to employees asking for raises.

"If I overspend as a company, we are not able to pay our bills," he said. "I may be able to pay you short term more than you're worth, but long term that catches up with me. And the health of the company you should care about, because if you want to be here a long time, how healthy this company is and where we spend money matters."

With the national debt topping $40 trillion, Curtis argued the fiscal health of the nation makes it hard for the U.S. to help everywhere.

"The more we dial in what we're asking for, the more we dial in how those dollars are spent overseas, the more we dial in on helping people help themselves so they're not dependent on our dollars, the more there is to go around, the healthier the whole ecosystem is that we have," he said.

Stewart, who served in Congress from 2013 to 2023, said both philanthropy and federal spending are needed to address global health challenges.

"We are literally the richest nation in the history of the world. How could we not try to help people?" he asked. "I mean, we have the resources. We have a responsibility to try to help some people."

He has concerns with how money has been spent and said there should be more guardrails on foreign aid to make sure it's not being wasted. But he also noted that only a small percentage of federal spending goes to foreign aid.

"Let's be careful with the money we spend," he said. "But at the same time, that doesn't mean we won't spend any money."

Curtis said Congress is looking at the "recalibration" of each dollar spent to make sure it's being used effectively. He pointed to PEPFAR, a decades-long initiative to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as a particularly effective program that has been credited with saving tens of millions of lives since 2003.

President Donald Trump's administration dissolved USAID last year, which was tasked with implementing the majority of PEPFAR funding, but Congress has continued to fund the program at levels similar to before Trump took office, according to KFF.

"If you were to look at the U.S. investment in PEPFAR and the impact on the world global health, the impact on the world economy — which as I pointed out, does impact us — you would be hard-pressed to find anything that's had that type of impact in the history of the world," Curtis told KSL.

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