State Dept moves to expand Mexico City Policy, targeting abortion, DEI and gender ideology in foreign aid

FIRST ON FOX: The State Department is finalizing an expansion of the Mexico City Policy Friday that will bar U.S. foreign assistance from subsidizing abortion and, in a major broadening, from supporting what the administration calls gender and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, Fox News Digital learned Thursday.

The Mexico City Policy is a Reagan-era U.S. rule that conditions foreign aid on recipient groups certifying they will not provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning. President Ronald Reagan first rolled the policy out in 1984 at a United Nations population conference to prevent U.S. foreign aid from being used to promote abortion in other nations. 

The State Department Friday is expected to finalize three rules to expand the Mexico City Policy to protect foreign assistance from subsidizing not only abortion as a method of family planning, but also gender and DEI ideology, Fox News Digital learned. 

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Under previous iterations of the Mexico City Policy, U.S. funding was barred from supporting organizations that provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning. During President Donald Trump's first term, the policy was expanded to cover roughly $8 billion in global health assistance. 

The newly finalized rules go further, and cover all nonmilitary foreign assistance to the tune of more than $30 billion. 

Foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations receiving U.S. assistance will be required to certify that they do not provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning, promote gender ideology, promote discriminatory equity ideology, or engage in unlawful diversity, equity and inclusion–related discrimination, according to the policy framework. 

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U.S.-based NGOs operating overseas will face similar certification requirements, Fox Digital learned. 

Democratic presidents typically rescind the rule, as President Joe Biden did days after taking office in 2021. Republican presidents usually reinstate it, as Trump did in January 2025. 

"These excessive conditions on foreign and development assistance undermine the United States’ efforts to advance gender equality globally by restricting our ability to support women’s health and programs that prevent and respond to gender-based violence," Biden said in 2021 when defending rescinding the rule after the first Trump administration wrapped up. 

The Mexico City Policy got its name due to Reagan first unveiling the policy at a U.N. conference that was held in Mexico City in 1984. The rule later became known as the "global gag rule" because it conditioned U.S. aid on groups that agreed not to provide or promote abortion as family planning, which opponents argued effectively "gags" their speech and advocacy overseas.

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The expected new rules come as the annual March for Life will be held in Washington, D.C., Friday. It attracts thousands of pro-lifers in the cold winter months to march through the streets of the nation's capital to champion protecting the unborn. Vice President JD Vance is slated to join the pro-lifers and deliver remarks. 

Trump repeatedly has touted the policy, saying in 2017 that his first administration was working "to protect the unborn" by reinstating the Mexico City Policy. The addition of gender and DEI ideology to the framework follows the Trump administration's year of work to roll back what it describes as the use of federal policy and funding to advance progressive social ideology.

"We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government," Trump celebrated in March 2025. "Our country will be woke no longer."