No H.I.V. Aid Without More Access to Minerals: U.S. Ponders ‘Sticks’ Against Zambia – The New York Times

The Trump administration is considering withholding lifesaving H.I.V. treatment and tuberculosis and malaria medications from 1.3 million Zambians as leverage to force the southern African nation to grant the United States greater access to its mineral resources, particularly copper, lithium, and cobalt. A State Department memo obtained by The New York Times states the administration will “only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale,” with potential cuts to aid through PEPFAR beginning as soon as May.

Zambia’s critical minerals are central to the green energy transition globally, and the Trump administration views China’s access to these resources as a strategic threat. Unlike agreements with other nations that focus primarily on health spending commitments, the administration is attempting to weaponize health aid to coerce Zambia into signing a deal that prioritizes U.S. mineral access over public health needs.

This tactic follows the Trump administration’s broad cuts to foreign aid announced last year. The State Department has been pressuring countries to sign new agreements, with 24 nations having signed deals worth $20 billion in health aid over five years, though most agreements simply require recipient governments to increase their own health spending rather than serve geopolitical extraction goals.

Other African nations are resisting similar demands tied to aid. Zimbabwe’s government recently rejected negotiations, citing demands about data and biological sample sharing as intolerable sovereignty violations. Activists in Kenya have taken their country’s agreement to court over comparable concerns, signaling widespread resistance to conditioning essential health assistance on unfavorable terms.

The abuse of power represented by weaponizing H.I.V. treatment demonstrates how the Trump administration subordinates human life to resource extraction and geopolitical positioning, directly sacrificing the health and survival of vulnerable populations in service of mineral interests and competition with China.

(Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/health/zambia-hiv-aid-minerals-trump.html)