For decades, the United States has played a major role in reducing child mortality. The Trump administration’s stance seems to be “well, what if we didn’t?”

The Gates Foundation issued a report Thursday that said about 200,000 more children worldwide under age 5 have died or will die this year compared with 2024. Last year saw 4.6 million children die before their age 5, but that is projected to increase to 4.8 million in 2025.

This is the first time this century that annual child deaths have increased. Child deaths have declined sharply since 1990, when 11.6 million children under 5 died. Nations made a concerted effort to drive that rate down, and it’s a genuine miracle that the number of deaths has been more than halved in just 35 years.

Bill Gates called the Trump administration’s c

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