In late 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to signal a peace accord geared toward ending the long-running and lethal battle in jap Congo. Worldwide safety has turned on its head since then, following the U.S. operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and U.S. threats to annex Greenland over essential minerals.
Two key elements make the Congo-Rwanda peace deal nonetheless extremely related for U.S. overseas coverage. However for the US to comprehend tangible advantages from the Trump-brokered deal, his administration might want to ratchet up its monetary strain with extra decisive motion.
In late 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to signal a peace accord geared toward ending the long-running and lethal battle in jap Congo. Worldwide safety has turned on its head since then, following the U.S. operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and U.S. threats to annex Greenland over essential minerals.
Two key elements make the Congo-Rwanda peace deal nonetheless extremely related for U.S. overseas coverage. However for the US to comprehend tangible advantages from the Trump-brokered deal, his administration might want to ratchet up its monetary strain with extra decisive motion.
First, essential minerals are on the coronary heart of why the administration has taken such an curiosity within the DRC. It’s the world’s largest producer of cobalt and tantalum; the second-largest producer of copper; and has massive concentrations of lithium, tin, and gold. American corporations at the moment are in talks with the DRC authorities over essential mineral mines, and a U.S.-backed enterprise has already began delivery copper to the US.
However continued battle, significantly pushed by Rwanda’s ongoing intervention in Congo’s east, creates instability and prevents U.S. corporations from accessing a number of main mines. A number of low-cost, focused steps by the administration would assist safe larger stability and important minerals entry.
Second, continued Rwandan navy intervention in jap DRC is making a mockery of Trump’s peacemaking efforts. Rwanda’s overt nonimplementation of the deal that President Paul Kagame had simply signed in Trump’s presence probably creates grounds to hope that the Trump administration will reply.
Instantly after Trump hosted the 2 presidents in December, Rwandan troops and Rwanda-backed March 23 Motion (M23) insurgent forces led a serious new offensive that displaced 200,000 civilians.
The administration’s quick lashing out at Rwanda clearly present that the incursion hit a nerve in Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that “Rwanda’s actions in jap DRC are a transparent violation of the Washington Accords … and the US will take motion to make sure guarantees made to the President are stored.” And U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz declared that “Rwanda is main the area … towards battle.”
Rwanda-backed forces proceed to occupy most of jap DRC and should not following by means of on the Washington Accords, and neither is the DRC authorities implementing its guarantees to halt assist for its armed teams.
Since March 2025, the US cornerstone effort in Africa has been its peace course of in coordination with Qatar to finish the battle in jap DRC. Since 1998, battle within the Congo has left greater than 5 million folks lifeless with one other 5 million at present displaced, together with 2 million folks newly displaced over the previous yr. Rwanda’s invasion consists of greater than 7,000 troops and command and management over the M23 rebels, who’ve undertaken ethnically focused mass killings, torture, and compelled deportations.
The peace course of has produced the signing of three peace accords, together with offers between the governments of the DRC and Rwanda, between the DRC and the M23, and an economics-for-peace settlement. However on the bottom, the battle is worsening. The M23 considerably expanded its territory in 2025, and the DRC authorities collaborates with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, the remnants of the Rwandan genocidaires from 1994, and lethal armed teams such because the Wazalendo. A continued kleptocratic system, escalating repression, and an incapability or unwillingness to guard civilians all fall on the DRC authorities.
A serious purpose for the continued combating, although not the one one, is cash. M23 controls essential gold and important minerals mines, looting $70 million price of gold from one mine alone since Could utilizing Rwandan technicians. The rebels have smuggled gold and tantalum to Rwanda, and Rwanda is estimated to should exported a report $2 billion price of gold in 2025, up greater than fivefold in simply 4 years.
Likewise, DRC-backed armed teams management many gold mines and smuggle gold to Uganda. The battle gold from each international locations flows unchecked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the place it’s laundered into the worldwide gold commerce.
The lacking ingredient to stopping the combating is sustained monetary strain led by the US. U.S. and European strain in early 2025 instantly led Rwanda to come back to the peace desk, because it feared that the U.S. sanctions on a authorities minister and European Union sanctions towards 9 officers and Rwanda’s predominant gold refiner may escalate considerably.
However no new strain has been utilized in practically a yr regardless of no change in conduct by the conflicting events. This led congressional Republicans to introduce a decision that calls on the administration to make use of sanctions to assist the peace course of.
In sum, there have been no prices for Rwanda’s escalating invasion or the DRC authorities’s backing of armed teams. The associated fee-benefit calculation for each governments is to proceed to pillage jap DRC by means of proxy battle machines, make offers with the US, and face no penalties. That could be a recipe for continued battle.
The rising threat is that the peace course of will, actually, lay the groundwork for a de facto partition of Congo, with a Rwanda-backed armed group controlling the strategic and mineral-rich Kivu provinces, violating the DRC’s sovereignty and making a residing hell for tens of millions of civilians. And certainly, United Nations consultants reported not too long ago that the M23 was organising a enclave in jap DRC.
For the United States to entry Congo’s minerals and to cease the fighters’ continued defiance of the Trump-brokered Washington Accords, the Trump administration ought to now subject a collection of escalating sanctions on Rwandan, Congolese, and UAE-based networks undermining peace. These ought to embody senior officers, state-owned corporations, and enterprise networks engaged in supporting armed teams, smuggling battle gold, and/or partaking in grand corruption. The European Union and United Kingdom ought to observe go well with, and all three ought to keep their current sanctions towards illicit actors within the area, resembling U.S. sanctions on mining magnate Dan Gertler. Importantly, all minerals offers must be absolutely clear, following contract transparency requirements outlined by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
In the meantime, Congolese civil society stays paradoxically probably the most politically official actor but probably the most marginalized within the peace course of. Its systematic exclusion is resulting in technocratic agreements which can be disconnected from native realities and missing mechanisms for accountability.
No peace settlement can survive with out the assist, participation, and management of the instantly affected populations, together with citizen actions, girls, and native communities They’re the one ensures that the agreements will maintain, since they characterize the affected populations and improve transparency. America, United Kingdom, and EU must also assist a transitional justice mechanism to research and prosecute battle crimes and crimes towards humanity in addition to a reputable, inclusive, and clear nationwide dialogue within the DRC.
The personal sector additionally has an essential position to play, significantly banks and world gold refiners. They need to conduct enhanced due diligence of gold purchases from Rwanda, Uganda, and the UAE due to the elevated flows of DRC battle gold to these international locations.
The peace agreements which have already been signed lay out a imaginative and prescient for the way forward for jap DRC. They embody plans for peaceable, clear financial growth and penalties for illicit actors. However with out severe penalties for the spoilers of peace, extra clear mining governance and reforms, and a extra outstanding position for civil society, the peace accords gained’t finish the battle. As an alternative, they may result in a everlasting fragmentation of Congolese sovereignty and can undermine U.S. entry to essential minerals.
Decisive motion by Washington may safe a significantly better consequence, one by which the US secures mineral entry, Trump is hailed as a peacemaker, and the Congolese folks may lastly see some measure of stability within the war-torn east. The secret is to impose severe monetary repercussions for the events undermining the Trump-brokered Washington Accords. A long-lasting peace in jap DRC can solely emerge from a realignment of political and financial incentives, making battle extra pricey than peace for all actors concerned. If the Rwandan and DRC governments undermine Trump’s deal, then these repercussions can’t come quickly sufficient.
