"During President Trump's first month in office, his administration upended much of the flagship global HIV program that had saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Zambia. The Zambian government went into emergency mode, desperate to ensure that people with the virus could continue to receive lifesaving medications."
"The Trump administration has set an April 30 deadline for the Zambian government to accept a new health funding agreement that is tied to giving the United States expanded access to the country's mineral resources. This is blackmail. It is extortion of the cruelest kind."
"We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale, a draft of a memo prepared for Secretary of State Marco Rubio by the department's Africa Bureau staff says."
The Trump administration significantly altered the global HIV program in Zambia, jeopardizing lifesaving treatments for many. The Zambian government faced an emergency to maintain medication access while losing critical interventions that prevented virus spread. A new funding agreement, requiring expanded U.S. access to Zambian mineral resources, was imposed with a tight deadline. This approach has been characterized as blackmail, reflecting a broader strategy of conditional foreign aid tied to U.S. interests, with many countries already signing similar agreements.
Read at Esquire
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