Donald Trump’s imperial administration appears intent on plundering and exploiting the African continent by any means.
As the president looks around the globe for ways to acquire the world’s resources, a new report from The New York Times underscored just how low the administration is willing to go.
And in this case, the downstream impact could be catastrophic for Americans. The Times’ report, which MS NOW has not independently confirmed, said the Trump administration might withhold HIV aid to Zambia to try to coerce the nation to hand over critical minerals.
The State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with H.I.V. in Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force the government of the southern African country to sign a deal giving the United States more access to its critical minerals.
‘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. A copy of the memo was obtained by The New York Times.
The Times’ report noted that about 1.3 million people in Zambia rely on daily HIV treatment through a U.S. program known as PEPFAR, and the memo said the administration is considering whether to “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May to try to force the Zambian government’s hand.
According to the report, the administration also has tried to pressure African nations to sign new agreements to hand over minerals and sensitive health data, including information about abortions, in exchange for health assistance.
I recently wrote about the Trump administration attempting to force Benin to participate in a vaccine study that garnered comparisons to the racist Tuskegee experiment. And one might say this plan to similarly coerce Zambia is as idiotic as it is cruel. HIV and AIDS prevention experts have already warned that the administration’s cuts to PEPFAR, or the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, stand to cause 6.6 million new HIV infections and 4.2 million new AIDS-related deaths, between 2025 and 2029. And because Americans do not live in an antiseptic bubble, enabling the spread of HIV — as the Trump administration risks doing with its ultimatum to Zambia — may very well threaten public health in the United States as well. We can see here how a combination of racism, greed and unabashed ignorance can put the entire world at risk. Contrary to his predecessor’s administration, which sought to improve on the paternalistic and exploitative relationship the U.S. has long maintained with African nations, Trump’s appears to see the continent — filled with nations he has labeled “s—hole” countries — as a waste bin where it can discard people targeted in the president’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown, and a region from which to extract coveted minerals.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
