There is a cold, utilitarian cruelty at the heart of the current administration’s foreign policy that should shock the conscience of every person of faith. Reports that the State Department is threatening to withhold life-saving PEPFAR HIV medicine from Zambia unless they grant exclusive access to critical lithium and cobalt reserves is a betrayal of our most basic moral obligations. We are told that the 'green energy transition' is a moral imperative to save the planet, yet here we see it being used as a bludgeon against the poorest of the poor. To treat the lives of suffering human beings as a bargaining chip for electric car batteries is a profound rejection of the sanctity of life. This is the logic of the machine, not the logic of the heart. A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats the 'least of these,' not by how efficiently it secures its supply chains. We are witnessing a new form of mineral imperialism that masks its greed in the language of environmentalism. We must stand for the dignity of the Zambian people, who deserve both health and sovereignty. The traditional values of our nation demand that we lead with charity, not with blackmail. We call upon our leaders to decoupling medical aid from resource extraction and to remember that every life in Eswatini or Zambia is of infinite worth, regardless of the minerals buried beneath their soil.