The Trump administration is considering cutting HIV relief to Zambia if the country fails to meet a list of demands, according to a new report.
Key to those demands is the U.S. receiving more access to Zambia’s natural minerals, according to The New York Times.
An estimated 1.3 million people in Zambia rely on antiretroviral medications, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine. Forty-two percent of those drugs are provided through PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a U.S. HIV/AIDS relief scheme.
However, that assistance could be “significantly cut” as soon as May, according to a draft memo prepared for Secretary of State Marco Rubio by his department’s Bureau of African Affairs.
“We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale,” reads the memo, which was seen by the Times.
PEPFAR has seen the United States investing over $110 billion in its global HIV/AIDS response since it was signed into law in 2003, according to the State Department’s own figures. It has saved an estimated 26 million lives.
Zambia has been one of the main recipients of PEPFAR, receiving more than $6 billion over the last two decades, according to the U.S. Embassy in Zambia.
The program provides financial support for medications that prevent babies from being infected with HIV at birth, as well as other drugs and health services.
Under the draft proposal of the new deal, seen by the Times, the U.S. would provide Zambia with $1 billion in health funding over five years. That is less than half of the amount given to the southern African country for health assistance before Trump’s second term began.
The deal comes with the caveat that Zambia commits $340 million of its own money to new health funding.
Zambia would also be required to give U.S. companies greater access to its huge reserves of lithium, copper and cobalt. This would, by extension, “end what the United States sees as China’s preferential access to Zambian mines,” the Times reports. The third piece of the agreement would reportedly also force negotiations over mining industry regulations.
According to the memo, the Zambian government has until May to agree to the deal.
If the country does not agree to the proposals - which the memo admits may require “the potential use of sticks - then “sharp public cuts to American foreign assistance would significantly demonstrate to aid-receiving countries the seriousness of our interest in collaboration and our insistence on tangible benefits under our America First foreign policy.”
Some Zambians fear that cutting the U.S. slashing its HIV relief could have devastating consequences.
Julius Kachidza, who lives with HIV, told the Times that the country would struggle to meet the demand for drugs.
“If this agreement is not signed, if the funding is not here for the next five years, government has got no capacity to respond to that immediate impact,” he said.
“It could be quite a disaster, especially to me,” Kachidza, whose son was also born with the virus, added. “And the majority of people living with HIV in Zambia.”
The Independent has approached the State Department for comment.
This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
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