A major campaign is underway to overturn administration cuts to global HIV/AIDS funding, with claims that such cuts are killing millions of people, causing global turmoil, and advancing China’s global agenda.

That sounds grave. Fortunately, it’s completely untrue.

On Inauguration Day, the White House ordered a 90-day pause to review all U.S. foreign aid. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterized some aid as “counterproductive to American interests, wasting taxpayer money and provoking resentment abroad.”

Rubio was right. Foreign aid had gone “off the ideological rails” by supporting progressive agendas — something that has earned it the rebuke of Congress.

The aid pause generated ire in proponents of the $6.5 billion annual President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief or PEPFAR, a U.S. government program launched in 2003 when Africa faced an out-of-control AIDS epidemic. A powerful coalition of NGOs, churches, contractors, foundations, universities, and pharmaceutical companies have coalesced in a lobbying campaign to shame Republican legislators into rejecting any cuts to the program whatsoever.

Only two months into the aid freeze, U2 rock star Bono claimed that “300,000 people have already died.” Bill Gates, a major global AIDS........

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