State Department Removes Controversial Health Agreements with African States from Website Without Explanation
Secrecy Harms Efforts to Improve Health Security
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The State Department has suddenly removed from its website the text of agreements it negotiated with several African nations to provide foreign aid for global health under the America First Global Health Strategy, just days after sharing these agreements publicly for the first time. Public Citizen called attention to these agreements and made them available on our website, alongside analysis about information that the State Department continues to withhold regarding billions of dollars in U.S. investments in foreign assistance for global health. The documents State shared and then removed represented five out of 26 Memoranda of Understanding reportedly signed to date. Public Citizen filed Freedom of Information Act requests in December to obtain copies of these and other agreements, which the State Department still has not answered.
The Trump Administration has explicitly stated that this aid is part of transactional exchanges with countries that include access to rare earths, critical minerals and other natural resources, as well as health data and viral specimens. The New York Times reported that the U.S. is weighing holding back health aid if Zambia does not grant greater U.S. access to its mineral resources.
Access to Medicines Director Peter Maybarduk issued the following statement:
“It looks like the State Department inadvertently did the right thing, by sharing key documents, and then immediately reverted to secrecy and took the documents down once they were noticed. State has since reposted other documents from the same period, but these controversial texts remain conspicuously absent.
“There is no compelling reason these aid agreements should be kept secret. They should be shared with the public as they have been with members of the Senate. The affected communities, service providers and experts need to be able to read the deals, to prepare for implementation and know what could change for health, and to advocate for improvements in future deals.
“The State Department’s secrecy degrades America’s standing as a partner and may cost lives. It harms efforts to improve health security worldwide. By limiting visibility into the terms of each agreement, the State Department ensures that countries sharing borders do not know what their neighbors have agreed to, challenged, or rejected altogether.
“The U.S. use of health aid as a bargaining chip already is failing, as countries push back. What else will the Trump administration insist that countries’ trade away to get back just some of the lifesaving aid that Trump cut last year?”