The Wall Street Journal
What’s News SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2025
Trump Wants to Abolish the Education Department. What Comes Next?
President Trump has repeatedly said he wants to eliminate the federal Department of Education. Last week his nominee to lead the department, Linda McMahon, was grilled by senators about the plan at her confirmation hearing. WSJ education reporter Matt Barnum and national political reporter Ken Thomas discuss how Trump might follow through on his plan, the legal and political hurdles it could face, and what the impact would be on states and schools. Alex Ossola hosts.
Alex Ossola: Hey, What's News listeners. It's Sunday, February 16th. I'm Alex Ossola for The Wall Street Journal. This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. This week, President Trump wants to close the Education Department. Can he succeed, and what would happen if he did?
The Federal Department of Education was established in 1980, and pretty much since then, conservatives have wanted to get rid of it. President Trump has run with the idea, both as a candidate and since returning to the White House. A reporter asked him about it in the Oval Office just this past week.
Speaker 2: How soon do you want the Department of Education to be closed?
Donald Trump: Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately. Look, the Department of Education's a big con job.
Alex Ossola: A move like this one might not be so simple to pull off. To talk about it, I'm joined by national political reporter Ken Thomas and education reporter Matt Barnum. Ken, I want to start us off with something really basic. What does the Federal Education Department actually do?
Ken Thomas: The department has a long history. Its main functions are to work with student aid programs. It also serves to implement Title I funding, which serves low-income students. It's also involved in working with funding for disabled students, as well as they have a civil rights division that oversees cases of discrimination in schools. And so, while we have had a history in this country of local control in education, much of the curriculum really is a function of local communities and states. There was this view that there was still a need for a department that would help oversee some of these various programs.
Alex Ossola: Can you quickly just break down the debate over eliminating the department? What are the arguments for and against it?
Ken Thomas: Conservatives and Trump have talked about the Department of Education as bureaucracy run amok and a group of bureaucrats who infringe upon the values of some of their voters.
- Bureaucracy: 官僚機構、官僚制度。政府機関や大企業などの組織において、規則や手続きに基づいて業務を行う官僚たちのシステム。
- Run amok: 暴走する、手に負えなくなる。制御不能な状態になることを指します。
- Bureaucrats: 官僚。政府機関や大企業などの組織に所属し、規則や手続きに基づいて業務を行う人々。
And so, they want a lot of these functions to be sent back to the states, in many cases in the form of block grants. The fear, if that were to happen, is that a lot of these functions may not be carried out. If your Title I funding maybe provides after-school programs or tutoring, or maybe it helps hire teachers to reduce class sizes in impoverished communities, that maybe those block grants wouldn't serve those purposes or would be diverted into other needs, and that there wouldn't be the oversight to ensure that those students get those resources.
Alex Ossola: Matt, I want to go to you next because that Title I funding is something that came up in Project 2025. That's the big conservative policy book that got a lot of attention during the campaign. President Trump backed away from it a bit, though some of the people who contributed to it are now being picked for roles in his administration. How does that fit in here?
- How does that fit in here?: これはここでどのように関係してくるのでしょうか？、これはどういう意味ですか？
Matt Barnum: Project 2025 has called for phasing out Title I funding over a period of time, so that could mean cuts for high-poverty schools. Now, they argue that Title I isn't effective. Some supporters of the program say that it is effective. There's also some who would say that the federal government's role has been drastically overstated by critics in the administration and other conservatives, that the federal government isn't the big boogeyman that they say it is.
- Title I funding: Title I資金（アメリカの教育法における低所得者層の子供たちへの教育支援プログラム）
- drastically overstated: 大幅に誇張された
- big boogeyman: 大きな脅威、お化け（ここでは、連邦政府が実際よりもずっと恐ろしい存在として描かれていることを指しています）
Alex Ossola: Okay. I'm hearing that funding is a big part of what the Education Department does. How do concerns about standards and curriculum come into play?
- come into play: 作用する、影響する、関わってくる
Matt Barnum: Funding is a very key role, but over the years, rules have attached to that funding. And there are certain rules that say the states have to have accountability systems to monitor their low-performing schools if they want to get the Title I money, which all states do. The Individuals with Disability Education Act, which has to do with students with disabilities, has rules about serving students with disabilities. And even some local school officials, who would not be fans of cutting federal funding, would say that the bureaucratic rules and paperwork that come with that funding can be too much.
- Accountability systems: 説明責任システム、アカウンタビリティシステム (組織や個人が、自身の行動や結果について責任を負う仕組み)
Alex Ossola: I want to bring in some data here. So, in fiscal year 2024, the federal government committed $224 billion to the Department of Education, which is about 2% of its overall budget. That's according to data we pulled from USAspending.gov, which is a government website that tracks government spending. The Trump administration, and in particular the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk, has been very focused on cutting government spending. So, have the cost cutters looked at the Education Department yet?
Matt Barnum: DOGE tweeted out that they had canceled 89 contracts at the research arm at the Department of Education, contracts that were worth about $900 million. Now, it's not clear that all that will be saved because some of those contracts were ongoing for work that has already been done that they would still have to pay out. But it shows that they are aggressively cutting aspects of the federal government and the Department of Ed where they can.
- tweeted out: ツイートした
- research arm: 研究部門
Alex Ossola: We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, what will it take to get rid of the Education Department, both politically and legally?
All right. We've heard the calls to abolish the Department of Education. How could that actually happen? Congress would have to play a role, right, Ken?
Ken Thomas: There have been many attempts to eliminate the Department of Education before, and they've all failed. And part of the problem for Republicans right now is that, even if they want to eliminate it, they're going to need to come up with the votes. In the Senate, for example, they control 53 votes. They would need to get 60 votes under the current Senate rules to eliminate the department. So that would require that they would get some significant Democratic support. It's not clear that that is out there right now. Most people expect that would be a very difficult lift.
- Would be a very difficult lift: 非常に困難なことだろう
(lift は、ここでは「持ち上げる」ことから転じて、「達成困難なこと」を意味します)
I think there's also just a political issue here, where a lot of this money for Title I or for funding for students with disabilities, they often serve rural, poor districts that, in many cases, are Republican areas. So, as a result, these programs have had bipartisan support over the years. Any attempt to potentially change the way this money is moved to states and to schools will certainly have a lot of concerns among both Republicans and Democrats.
Alex Ossola: Matt, do people actually want the Education Department to go away?
Matt Barnum: Abolishing the Department of Ed is a really galvanizing promise, but it's also galvanizing for critics. And we've seen a counterreaction to the idea of abolishing the Department of Education. The Wall Street Journal did a poll and it showed that about 60% of voters were against abolishing the Department of Education. So, it's a tough thing to do politically. Maybe they can sell it. Maybe they can change people's minds. Maybe they can have a specific plan to do so that assuages concerns. But it won't be easy, as far as I can tell.
- galvanizing: 人々を奮い立たせる、刺激する
- counterreaction: 反発、反対
- assuage concerns: 懸念を和らげる
Alex Ossola: So, functionally, the Trump administration could gut the department without officially having an act of Congress to abolish it. Are those the same thing, or does it depend how it shakes out?
- gut: (内臓を)取り除く、(重要な部分を)取り除く、骨抜きにする
- does it depend how it shakes out?: 結果次第で変わるのでしょうか？、どう転ぶかによって変わるのでしょうか？
(shake out は、(混乱などが)最終的にどうなるか、という意味)
Ken Thomas: It depends how it shakes out. They could certainly starve the department of resources. Certainly, we could see them try to eliminate a lot of employees. They could also find other ways to configure these programs. There's been discussion, student loans going to Treasury. There's been talk of maybe the Labor Department taking on certain responsibilities. Health and Human Services could certainly take on responsibilities. At one point, the Education Department was part of what is now HHS. There's also a regulatory component. For example, we'll see them maybe try to have a narrower interpretation of what kind of civil rights cases are pursued and the scope to which they are pursued and how they interpret these laws.
- starve the department of resources: 部署への資源を枯渇させる、資源を削減する。 (starve: 飢えさせる、枯渇させる)
- regulatory component: 規制的な側面。
Matt Barnum: To be clear, the Department of Education is codified in statute. So if you really wanted to officially, legally get rid of the Department of Education as we know it, you would need to go through Congress to do that. The easiest things for them to do legally and politically are the things that would make the smallest impact and have the smallest budget. The big-ticket items, the things that cost the most, the things that probably have the most regulatory burden, Title I, funding for students with disabilities, the federal student loan program, the existence of the department itself, those are in statute.
- codified in statute: 法令に明記されている、成文化されている
- codify「（法などを）成文化する、体系化する」法律や規則を、明確な文章として書き記し、体系的に整理することを指します。
- big-ticket items: 高額なもの、重要なもの
Alex Ossola: So it's still early in his second term, but Trump is already moving on this agenda. And his nominee for the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, just had her confirmation hearing this past week.
Matt Barnum: Yeah. So, it was very interesting. She generally said that she supported Trump's vision to reduce federal involvement in education, though she stopped short of explicitly calling for the abolishment of the department. She said that Trump and her agreed that it would take an act of Congress to actually get rid of the department. She also emphasized that programs and funding for local public schools would not be cut even under their vision of getting rid of the Department of Education. So, my two big questions after the hearing is, where does this leave the executive order? And then secondly, what exactly is the point of getting rid of the Department of Education if they want to preserve most or all of its programs?
- Stopped short of: ～するまでには至らなかった、～は控えた
- Explicitly: 明示的に
- Calling for: 求める
-
where does this leave the executive order? 「これは大統領令をどう位置づけるのか？」「これは大統領令にどのような影響を与えるのか？」
－＞"leave" 「（ある状態に）置く」「（ある状況に）する」
"where does this leave the executive order?" は、「この状況は、大統領令をどのような状態にするのか？」「この状況は、大統領令をどのように扱うことになるのか？」
Alex Ossola: But the administration isn't waiting for its secretary to start making moves. Matt, what else is going on at the department right now?
Matt Barnum: I reported just this past week that the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, which investigates discrimination based on race, disability status, and other things, some of its work has been put on a pause in some of its regions. And that's according to two people who spoke to me. And that has limited their ability to do their day-to-day work of investigating civil rights issues. Some version of a pause or disruption in work is normal with the transition, but folks that I spoke to said that this was much more restrictive than typical.
Alex Ossola: All right. Last question before we go. What are you watching in the coming weeks and months to see where things are headed?
Ken Thomas: We're all watching to see what this executive action looks like from the Trump administration. We expect the president to sign some kind of executive order that would start putting this process into place. We don't know exactly what it would entail. We have an idea, as we've described, but we'll all be watching for how they explicitly lay out this plan. I think the other thing to watch for politically is, does this push to eliminate the Department of Education? Is that hurt by so much of this larger effort to reduce the size of government and this push by Elon Musk to change the way the federal government works? Is there going to be a backlash to all of this work that's being done collectively? The Education Department could certainly be affected by public opinion on how this government overhaul is going.
Alex Ossola: I've been speaking with national political reporter Ken Thomas and education reporter Matt Barnum. Ken, Matt, thank you both.
Ken Thomas: Thank you.
Matt Barnum: Thank you.
Alex Ossola: And that's it for What's News Sunday for February 16th. Today's show was produced by Charlotte Gartenberg with help from deputy editors Scott Saloway and Chris Zinsli. I'm Alex Ossola. A programming note, we're off tomorrow for the holiday, but we'll be back Tuesday morning with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.
FEBRUARY 17, 2025
Clean-Energy Program Fueled by Biden Takes Deep Staff Cuts
The number of employees in the Energy Department’s loan office has been sliced by roughly 25% as part of President Trump’s program to reduce employees across the government..
- The Energy Department’s loan office: エネルギー省の融資部門。
Trump Steamrolls Critics With Flood-the-Zone Strategy
The president’s style rankles even some allies but draws a contrast with Biden.
- Steamroll: (動詞) (議論や反対意見を) 圧倒する、無視して強行する
- Flood-the-zone strategy: (名詞): (政治やマーケティングなどで) 特定のテーマや情報を集中的に大量に流し込み、人々の注意を引きつけ、議論をそのテーマに集中させる戦略。
- Rankle: (動詞): (人の心を) いらだたせる、憤慨させる。
- Draw a contrast with: (句動詞): ～と対照をなす、～と比べて際立つ。
Mitch McConnell Makes a Lonely Stand Against Trump
The former GOP leader can more freely speak his mind on nominees and defense, but his influence is limited.
The Rower Turned Engineer Who Helped Make Nvidia a $3 Trillion Company
Jonah Alben uses lessons from his days on Stanford’s rowing team to design AI chips and keep selling to China.
- Rower 漕艇選手
At Least Eight Dead in Kentucky After Powerful Storm
Many of the deaths were caused by cars getting swept away or stuck in floods, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said. Hundreds of people had to be rescued.
Trump’s Return-to-Office Order Threatens Power of Government Unions
The fight involves whether remote-work protections for federal workers last from one administration to the next.
- Remote-work protections: リモートワーク保護。リモートワークを認める制度や、リモートワーク中の従業員の権利などを指します。
Russia’s Advance in Ukraine Is Slowing. Here’s What’s Happening and Why.
A look at where Russia has gained momentum on the battlefield, but how it could struggle to sustain it.
- A look at: ～を見ていく
Squeezed Between Putin and Trump, Europe Sees a Moment of Truth
Excluded from talks between the U.S. and Russia, European leaders consider dramatic and immediate change.
- Moment of Truth: 正念場、試練の時、「真価が問われる時」。重大な決断を迫られる時、真価が問われる時、という意味です。
- Squeezed Between: (～の間に) 挟まれた、押しつぶされた。
The 27-Year-Old Press Secretary Who ‘Speaks Trump Fluently’
Karoline Leavitt’s rapid rise to the White House showcases both precocious skill and confrontations with the traditional media.
- precocious: 形容詞。「早熟な」「早慧な」という意味です。特に、子供が大人顔負けの才能を持っていることを指すことが多いです。
How the Food Industry’s Main Lobbyist Became a Top Nuisance
Scott Faber campaigns against food chemicals, and his push is finding its moment with the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Lobbyist (ロビイスト): 特定の団体や企業の利益を代表して、政治家や政府機関に働きかける人。この文脈では、食品業界の利益を代表する人を指します。
- Nuisance (厄介者): 面倒な人、迷惑な人、悩みの種となる人
The New Survival Guide for Private Equity: Go Big or Get Back to Basics
Successful firms are increasingly split between behemoths with several business lines and those focusing on their roots of buying companies.
- Private Equity: プライベートエクイティ（未公開株式投資。機関投資家や富裕層などから資金を集め、未上場企業に投資するファンドのこと）
- Behemoths: 巨大企業、怪物（ここでは、巨大なプライベートエクイティファンドを指す）
The Journal. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2025
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
At the beginning of his presidency, Donald Trump suspended most U.S. foreign aid, causing vast confusion and concern around the world. One affected program was PEPFAR, the bipartisan initiative that works to fight HIV/AIDS globally. WSJ’s Nicholas Bariyo from Uganda and Michael M. Phillips from Kenya report. And we hear from Karl Hoffman, the CEO of the public health organization HealthX Partners.
- PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief)
Ryan Knutson: Earlier this week, our colleague Nicholas Bariyo went to visit an HIV/AIDS clinic in Kampala, Uganda.
Nicholas Bariyo: Everything is quiet.
Ryan Knutson: The clinic was closed, shut down after President Trump froze almost all foreign aid money. Only a security guard and a cleaner were on the premises.
Nicholas Bariyo: The security guard at the gate says he's not allowed to let anyone inside. Now, he tells me that people have been coming and being turned away, and as is that no one now comes. I just...
- as is that: (ここでは)～という状況が続いている、～の通りである
"as is that" ＝ "as it is" "as things stand"
"as it is" をより強調した表現で、ここでは「～という状況が続いている」「～の通りである」
The situation remains as is that we have no further information.
As is that, the project is still under development.
Ryan Knutson: Before it closed, it was providing care to hundreds of patients with HIV/AIDS every day. In the meantime, all the medicine that's sitting inside this clinic is just locked away.
- Sitting inside: 中に置かれている
- Just locked away: ただ鍵をかけられて保管されているだけ
Nicholas Bariyo: Yes, all the medicine, yes, all the supplies because the people who have been working there were told not to return.
Ryan Knutson: Since it's founding, this clinic has been funded almost entirely by US foreign aid. For more than 20 years, it's been part of a program known as PEPFAR, a multi-billion-dollar US effort specifically designed to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS globally. And how important are the services provided by this clinic?
Nicholas Bariyo: So they are very, very important because it helps people who live in rural areas, people who have no money to pay for these tests, and most importantly, expectant mothers, people who are pregnant, and these treatments help them from passing the virus onto their unborn children.
- Expectant mothers: 妊婦、妊娠している女性
- "help 人 from doing" で、「人が～するのを防ぐ」「人が～しないように助ける」
The signs helped people from getting lost in the park.
Ryan Knutson: PEPFAR has been swept up in President Trump's 90-day freeze on foreign aid. Although the administration has signaled that it didn't intend to pause PEPFAR entirely, the order is having that effect. At this moment, PEPFAR programs are mostly at a halt all across Africa. I asked our other colleague, Michael Phillips, about the effect of the funding freeze in Kenya where he's based.
- Swept up in: (～に)巻き込まれる、巻き込まれる、引きずり込まれる
sweep up - force into some kind of situation, condition, or course of action.
"to become involved in something, even if you do not want to be
Michael M. Phillips: Well, I think there's been a general sense of panic. So I spoke to somebody the other day. This person has family members who are HIV-positive and they've been on antiretrovirals through PEPFAR, and some of those family members are literally going out and picking out gravesites for themselves because they don't think they're going to make it.
- they've been on antiretrovirals through PEPFAR: PEPFARを通じて抗レトロウイルス薬を服用している
- Antiretrovirals: 抗レトロウイルス薬。HIV(ヒト免疫不全ウイルス)の増殖を抑制する薬の総称です。
- Been on: (薬などを)服用している、(治療を)受けている。
- gravesites: 墓地
Ryan Knutson: Oh my goodness.
Michael M. Phillips: So imagine that. You thought you were okay, you thought you'd gotten past this disease, you could live with it, you're not transmitting it to anybody, and suddenly, you're looking around and thinking, "I can't afford to buy drugs and no one's going to give them to me anymore. So well, I'll save my family the trouble and I'll pick a place to bury myself."
- Gotten past this disease: この病気を乗り越えたと思っていた。
"get past something"
- 困難や障害を乗り越える
- （嫌なことや辛いことを）忘れる、乗り越える
- （病気などが）完治する
- Live with it: (病気と)共存できると思っていた。
- I'll save my family the trouble: 家族の手間を省く。(ここでは、自殺を暗示している)
- save: (ここでは)～を避ける、～を省く
- "save someone the trouble" 「(人)に面倒を省く」ある行動や決断によって、他の人が手間や苦労をせずに済むようにすることを表します。
- trouble: 面倒、迷惑、苦労
Ryan Knutson: Wow.
Michael M. Phillips: And you know, it's a stunning thought.
Ryan Knutson: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Friday, February 14th. Coming up on the show, America has spent billions combating AIDS around the world. Is that era now over? Fighting HIV/AIDS has been a big part of America's foreign aid spending for decades.
ーーー
George W. Bush: Many hospitals tell people, "You've got AIDS. We can't help you. Go home and die." In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words.
Ryan Knutson: In 2003, then-President George W. Bush announced a new governmental initiative called the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.
Michael M. Phillips: PEPFAR is a program of the United States government finances to combat AIDS worldwide and to treat people who have HIV to prevent them from becoming AIDS patients and then ultimately from dying, and Bush started this program as a way to reach out to people who cared about Africa. He was exhibiting his own concern about Africa.
George W. Bush: And across that continent, only 50,000 AIDS victims, only 50,000, are receiving the medicine they need.
Michael M. Phillips: And the real innovation of PEPFAR was that the US agreed to pay to keep poor Africans who had HIV infections alive, and the results have been really astounding. Something like 25 or 26 million people in Africa are alive today because the United States helps them stay alive.
- astounding: 驚くべき、驚異的な
astounding
[əˈstaʊndɪŋ]
Ryan Knutson: PEPFAR is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world. It's credited with not only saving millions of lives in Africa, but also helping prevent HIV from spreading across the globe in Asia and Latin America. Congress has reauthorized funding for the program every few years since its inception. Last year, funding for PEPFAR was estimated at about $6.5 billion, which is less than a 10th of a percent of the US government's $7 trillion total budget. So how successful would you say this program has been?
- It's credited with: ～のおかげである、～に功績があるとされている
- reauthorized funding: 資金提供を再承認した
Michael M. Phillips: I think that most people would say it's been extraordinarily successful. People who would otherwise be dead by the millions are alive today. So I think medically speaking, and for many, many, many years, politically speaking, it was a very popular project.
Barack Obama: I had some disagreements with my predecessor, but one of the outstanding things that President Bush did was to initiate the PEPFAR program.
Ryan Knutson: Its supporters have also included former Vice President Mike Pence.
Mike Pence: PEPFAR was an extraordinary bipartisan achievement of compassion.
- extraordinary:adj + noun
並外れた、異常な、驚くべき、特別の
「extraordinary behavior」「異常な行動」
Ryan Knutson: Former President Joe Biden.
Joe Biden: George W. Bush deserves great credit.
- deserves: (～に)値する、ふさわしい
- great credit: 大きな称賛、高い評価
Ryan Knutson: And even Trump, during his first administration.
Donald Trump: What we've done for AIDS in Africa is unbelievable. We've spent six...
Ryan Knutson: But when Trump took office a second time, cutting foreign aid funding was one of his first actions. He signed an executive order that essentially froze all of the roughly $65 billion the government spends on foreign aid in total around the world, including PEPFAR.
---
Michael M. Phillips: I think there are people in the administration who believe that the aid industry or the world of foreign assistance was beyond repair in some way, wasn't achieving what they wanted to achieve, wasn't oriented enough towards American self-interest, which is clearly what the America First agenda is. They just thought that you couldn't fix it a little bit at a time and you had to fix it or kill it all at once.
- Beyond repair: 修復不可能、どうしようもない
Ryan Knutson: One reason the Trump administration says it paused aid is that much of it doesn't align with Trump's politics. Last week, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stood in front of the White House and listed off international aid programs the Trump administration sees as wasteful.
---
Karoline Leavitt: $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. I don't know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going towards this crap, and I know the American people, don't either.
Ryan Knutson: US federal funds did go to all these programs through the State Department, although the amount of federal money spent on that opera in Colombia was actually closer to $25,000, not $47,000. So was PEPFAR just caught in the crossfire then? Because obviously, it's not a program that's supposed to have anything to do with DEI.
- "Caught in the crossfire"「争いや対立に巻き込まれる」「予期せぬ事態に巻き込まれる」
Michael M. Phillips: I think the freeze on PEPFAR and everything else was very intentional. You'd have to know absolutely nothing about US foreign assistance to not know about PEPFAR. I don't know what percentage of foreign aid has anything to do with diversity and those issues. It's not very large. I think we can be confident of that. Most of it is simply helping other people, and then there's a debate about whether that's what you want to do with taxpayer money. I won't make a judgment about that, but the administration has clearly signaled what their judgment is.
Ryan Knutson: On PEPFAR specifically, the Trump administration has sent mixed messages. Clinics around the world are closed and there isn't much guidance from the State Department. But Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he supports PEPFAR and the administration says that some life-saving activities can get a waiver to resume work.
- can get a waiver: 免除を受けることができる
Michael M. Phillips: The problem is the waiver itself has to be approved. It's not just a blanket waiver, go out and spend the money that was already allocated.
- Blanket waiver: 包括的な免除
"Blanket waiver" 特定の状況や条件に関係なく、すべての人またはすべてのケースに適用される免除を指します。つまり、個別の審査や承認なしに、広範囲にわたって適用される免除のこと
Blanket: (形容詞)
広範囲に及ぶ、包括的な
無条件の、制限のない
Ryan Knutson: Meaning, each PEPFAR program has to get specific approval, and since so much work has stopped back in Washington, D.C. because of the freeze, in some cases, people on the ground don't know who to call for help.
Michael M. Phillips: You've got nobody to call up and say, "Okay, you and I have been working together for five years. Here's my new budget. Who's going to approve it?" There's no one that answered the phone. So it's like a promise of a waiver has been issued, but the waivers themselves have not. So there's a lot of confusion amongst the people who implement these AIDS programs as to whether they can actually go ahead and give out drugs to people who are sick. And so the chaos around these programs is extraordinary.
Ryan Knutson: The State Department says some waivers for life-saving programs have been issued, and yesterday, a judge ruled that USAID funding should be allowed to flow again temporarily. But our colleagues in Africa said that doesn't seem to be happening yet. In Uganda, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hundreds of health workers who were being paid under PEPFAR were told to go home and they haven't gone back to work.
Michael M. Phillips: I think that most of the people who have been involved in PEPFAR, when asked, "What does this mean?" would say, "People are going to die. Lots of people are going to die." There's nobody that's stepping in to provide these drugs that the US government provided. And once you're off the drugs, HIV will get you.
Ryan Knutson: Coming up, we talked to the CEO of a nonprofit that got a lot of its funding for PEPFAR about what this shift in policy will mean for America's standing overseas. Karl Hoffman is CEO of the public health organization, HealthX Partners. He's also a former US diplomat. How many countries have you lived in?
Karl Hoffman: Probably 10 or 15, not a crazy number.
Ryan Knutson: I mean, that's a pretty crazy number for countries to... When the AIDS freeze went into effect, HealthX Partners was hit particularly hard. Karl's organizations work on HIV/AIDS and other health programs in more than 40 countries, and roughly half of their nearly $500 million budget comes from the US government, including through PEPFAR. So how would you describe and how would you characterize what traditionally has been the role of USAID abroad?
Karl Hoffman: The US foreign aid enterprise, not just USAID, but the other parts of it too, are really about improving conditions in places far away so that threats don't manifest close to home. That's the underlying principle. It's better for Americans if people far away are healthier, more productive, safer, because that makes us healthier, more productive, and safer. This is sometimes called soft power, but as somebody said to me the other day, soft power is power and we should not be throwing it away at a time of great power competition for hearts and minds around the world.
－＞世界中で人々の心と支持を巡って激しい勢力争いが繰り広げられている時に
- "Hearts and minds" 比喩的に「人々の支持や共感」という意味で使われています。
Ryan Knutson: So what do you make of the fact that the Trump administration and a number of his supporters seem to think that this is not money that the US taxpayer should be spending money on?
- What do you make of...? …についてどう思いますか？、…をどう解釈しますか？
make of
(～を)理解する、解釈する
(～を)どう思うか、(～について)どう評価するか:
(～を)作る、(～を)構成する
Karl Hoffman: That's a very understandable point of view, and it's been a long-standing view, I think. I mean, a lot of Americans are under the misimpression that foreign aid is a huge part of the federal budget and we should be spending that money at home. But the whole foreign id expenditure of the US, including the cost of the entire State Department, all of our contributions to the UN, all the investments in global health, everything the US does under the broad definition of foreign aid, foreign engagement on the civilian side is 1% of the federal budget.
Ryan Knutson: It's still tens of billions of dollars though.
Karl Hoffman: Yeah, it's true. It's a lot of money. But the idea that we can balance the budget by eliminating foreign aid, which you sometimes hear, is a fallacy.
- fallacy
[ˈfæləsi]
「誤謬（ごびゅう）」
議論や推論における誤り、または欠陥を指す言葉です。論理的な構造に欠陥があるため、結論が正しく導き出されないような推論を指します。
Ryan Knutson: In Karl's view, the billions of dollars the US spends on foreign aid has compounding benefits.
Karl Hoffman: I remember when many countries in Africa we're contemplating almost a societal collapse because of HIV and AIDS. That, of course, has been largely managed because of innovations in drugs and a huge political commitment and financial commitment led by the US, but not only by the US. Right? And so instead of collapsing societies from an infectious disease like HIV, you have societies that can manage their own affairs increasingly. That's good for us when people far away can manage their own public health crises because otherwise they become our problem.
Ryan Knutson: But if you listen to the stuff that Elon Musk has been saying, he said that there's also a lot of examples of corruption, waste, money that's being spent on things that Trump and a lot of his supporters don't believe in, like diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Have you seen things like that? What do you make of that?
Karl Hoffman: My organizations, the ones that I'm responsible for, haven't been hired to deliver anything like that. We've been hired to deliver better health outcomes in countries around the world, and I think we do it pretty cost-effectively.
Ryan Knutson: Do you think there's a lot of waste in the foreign aid system?
Karl Hoffman: I think there's a possibility of waste in everything the government does and also in everything that the private sector does. That's why ideas around reform and improving and shifting the burden of these challenges onto host governments, those are all good agendas. Pushing for efficiency and cost-effectiveness, that's all totally legitimate.
Ryan Knutson: Karl says he's trying to keep his organization afloat. It's had to lay off or furlough thousands of employees, and they're looking for sources of new funding. Meanwhile, his organization has received waivers to resume some life-saving activities, but no funding to allow that to happen yet. What do you think might step in to fill this void, if anything?
->might step in to fill this void
この空白を埋めるために何が起こりうると思いますか？
- furlough: 一時帰休させる
Karl Hoffman: Well, it's early to make predictions, but I think it's a mistake to assume that other players in this space are going to step up to gap-fill and to come in behind the gap that's been created by the absence of the US government.
- Step up: 積極的に行動する、名乗りを上げる
- Gap-fill: 空白を埋める、欠員を補充する
- Come in behind: (～の)後を追う、(～の)後に続く
"behind" は、ここでは「後に」という意味だけでなく、「～の代わりに」「～を補うために」というニュアンスも含んでいます。
「空白の後ろに入る」これは、あるものが欠けている、あるいは不在であることによって生じた空白に対して、別のものがその空白を埋めるために現れる、という意味を表します。
Everybody else has seen these actions of beginning to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, freezing all foreign assistance, and a lot of other donor governments, I think, are saying, "Ah, this is our time to pull back too."
Ryan Knutson: Other governments around the world?
Karl Hoffman: Yes, yes, I think so. The US was getting bigger and bigger as a relative share of this, and now the US tentpole has been pulled out of the tent, and I think the whole tent is going to get considerably smaller, and so you're going to have a vacuum that's filled by misery. You'll have a vacuum that's filled by increased death, misery, and poverty. And yes, it's far away, but ultimately it's going to be bad for us, I think, and that's one thing that I worry about.
- Tentpole: 大黒柱、主要な支え
Ryan Knutson: Right now, the future of PEPFAR is unclear, but Karl says most people with diseases like HIV/AIDS don't have time to wait.
Karl Hoffman: The thing about infectious disease, be it HIV or malaria or TB, there's no option of just pausing. Freezing is an odd concept in the case of infectious disease work because if you're not moving forward, then you're falling behind.
Ryan Knutson: If you're not pushing against the disease, the disease is pushing back against you.
Karl Hoffman: That's right. That's true on the geopolitical playing field as well. We're either gaining yards or we're losing yards, and right now, we're putting the ball down and walking back and not even fighting for valuable terrain on this competitive landscape, and I think that's a mistake for us.
Ryan Knutson: That's all for today, Friday, February 14th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Katherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphreys, Sofie Kodner, Jessica Mendoza, Matt Kwong, Kate Linebaugh, Colin McNulty, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Pérez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alessandra Rizzo, Alan Rodriguez Espinoza, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singgih, Jeevika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whelan, Tatiana Zamis, and me, Ryan Knutson, with help from Trina Menino. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week by Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, and Nathan Singapok. Fact-checking by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. We're off for Presidents' Day. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. See you then.