Elton John has condemned the “inhumane” attitudes of governments around the world in failing to help stop the spread of Aids, while suggesting that Donald Trump could be compelled to act in order to secure his own legacy.
The British pop icon, 78, has raised over $650m through the Elton John AIDS foundation since its inception in 1992, and continues to campaign for the cause today.
In a new interview with Variety, the “Rocket Man” singer expressed his frustration at the “crimes against millions of [people] that are happening because of governments and stigma and hate.
“It’s so frustrating when you have the medicine, you have prep, you have the antiretrovirals,” he said. “We can stop the spread of AIDS, if people just got off their backsides and treated human beings in a Christian kind of way.”
Suggesting that Trump had “maybe solved the peace problem,” referring to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, John added: “If he wants to go down as one of the greatest presidents in history… if he ended Aids, that would really be a feather in his cap.”
The interview noted that John has a “long history” with Trump. While he declined to perform at the US president’s 2016 inauguration, he serenaded Trump and his wife Melania during their wedding at Trump’s Mar-A-Logo estate in 2005.
Asked why he didn’t simply call the president, as he would with British prime minister Keir Starmer or France’s Emmanuel Macron, John’s husband David Furnish said they had been having “very positive” conversations with representatives in Washington.
Upon being reinstated as president in January this year, Trump immediately gave a series of executive orders targeting transgender, nonbinary and intersex Americans.
His aid cuts to US foreign assistance, including slashing millions of dollars of USAID funding to Pepfar, its global HIV/Aids repsonse programme, have also been cited as helping to fuel rising violence against trans people and those living with HIV.
People living with HIV in Tanzania and Uganda reported “dramatically increased levels of stigma, denial of health and criminal justice services, and physical and verbal abuse in the wake of the disruptions”, especially against LGBT+ people.
One trans woman living with HIV in Tanzania said a hospital worker had told her: “Trump has made changes; because of that, what’s left for you is death, so you should repent.”
A trans man and human rights advocate in the same country said HIV-affected people he worked with now felt unsafe collecting their medication.
John’s interview comes as Britain also significantly slashed its contribution to the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, compounding Trump’s aid cuts made earlier this year.
In the wake of those cuts, the had of UNAIDS has urged the UK to “fight to the finish line” to help end the HIV/Aids pandemic.
“It isn’t just charity – this is global,” Winnie Byanyima told The Independent this week. “When you don’t end it, it incubates and comes back to other parts of the world to haunt you. So end it. End it for the whole world.”
“There’s so much more to be doing there,” John told Variety. “If there’s no dialogue, it may take much longer than we hope it will. You can’t walk away after coming so far. And sometimes you feel like beating your head against a brick wall, but that doesn’t do any good to the people that are suffering.”
The Independent has launched a new project, Rethinking Global Aid, to investigate the impact of foreign aid spending cuts on the developing world. You can read our latest coverage here.
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