Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe addresses the United Nations General Assembly in September, 2025. Mr. Haimbe says the government won't give one trading partner preferential treatment amid U.S. pressure for access to critical minerals.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Zambia has dealt a blow to the Trump administration’s critical minerals strategy, rejecting its bid for preferential treatment for U.S. investors in the mining sector.
Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe, in a statement on Monday, also accused President Donald Trump’s administration of seeking to win the preferential minerals deal by linking it to a U.S. offer of US$2-billion in health funding.
“The Zambian government rightfully takes the view, first and foremost, that Zambians must have a say on how her critical minerals are used, and second, that no one strategic partner is to be treated preferentially to others,” Mr. Haimbe said.
The agreements were stalled because of U.S. insistence that the health money would be conditional on a minerals deal, he said. It was the first time Zambia has disclosed details of the dispute.
Zambia, one of the world’s biggest copper producers, has been a leading target of the U.S. campaign to secure a supply of critical minerals. But after several months of fraught negotiations, the issue has now triggered a war of words between Zambia and a senior U.S. diplomat.
The outgoing U.S. ambassador to the southern African country, Michael Gonzales, sparked controversy last week when he blamed Zambia for corruption that deterred U.S. investors. He also alleged that the government has ignored the proposed health deal, despite the offer of US$2-billion in funding over the next five years.
“Every year, the country loses out on hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment and growth because they are hijacked by unmitigated petty corruption, blocked because law-abiding investors refuse to pay kickbacks to Zambian bureaucrats or Zambian leaders who are never held accountable,” Mr. Gonzales said in a speech.
“Zambian government officials often can scarcely be bothered to take meetings with American officials or companies, not to mention capture the billions of dollars of its own money secreted out of the country to East Asia.”
Mr. Gonzales, who has served as ambassador since 2022, denied reports that the Trump administration was threatening to halt its long-standing financial support for life-saving medicine for Zambians with HIV. But he questioned whether Washington would continue to provide “massive aid budgets” if corruption is not halted.
The health agreement, he said, has been stalled by several months of Zambian inaction, despite an April 30 deadline that was ultimately missed. “Our calls go ignored, questions unanswered, meetings cancelled, leaving us without even opportunities to speak, much less engage in substantive deliberations,” he said.
Mr. Haimbe retorted that the delays in the health and minerals deals were caused by a U.S. attempt to connect the two agreements.
“The Zambian government has been consistent that the agreements must be considered separately on their respective merits,” he said, adding that the two deals needed to be “carefully and diligently considered.”
Mr. Haimbe also alleged that the United States was insisting on including a data-sharing provision in the health agreement, which would violate the privacy rights of Zambian citizens.
Canadian companies First Quantum Minerals Ltd. FM-T and Barrick Mining Corp. ABX-T are among the biggest investors in Zambia’s mining sector, together producing more than half of Zambia’s copper annually. Chinese and Middle Eastern companies are also major players in the Zambian mining sector.
But U.S. investors are scrambling to catch up. Last week, U.S. company KoBold Metals broke ground on the Mingomba copper mine, a planned US$3-billion project that would become Zambia’s biggest copper mine. The company is backed by U.S. billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
The Trump administration is also pushing for preferential access to critical minerals in other African countries.
When it brokered a peace agreement that aimed to halt the fighting in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it attached a commercial deal to ensure that U.S. investors would have access to mineral resources in the country. Congo is a major producer of copper and cobalt.