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Congo Wants Deal With Rwanda-Backed Rebels Before Trump Meeting
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Michael J KavanaghJune 30, 2025 at 10:17 AM EDT
Democratic Republic of Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner.
Photographer: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
The Democratic Republic of Congo wants a peace agreement with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels before a planned summit next month between the leaders of the two nations and US President Donald Trump.
The countries signed a deal Friday in Washington where they pledged to support ongoing negotiations in Qatar between Congo and the M23, which occupies a large swath of mineral-rich eastern Congo including its two largest cities. While the rebels wouldn’t necessarily need to withdraw before the presidential meeting, Congo wants “an agreement” in place that they will, Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told Bloomberg in an interview on Saturday.
Read More: Congo, Rwanda Sign US-Backed Peace Deal to End Years of War
“I want to be confident that before then we would have something tangible,” Kayikwamba said. “For us it’s extremely important to make sure that we have the commitment at the state level of Rwanda, but also that we have commitments at the level of the M23.”
The US-brokered deal marks Trump’s latest attempt at forging peace, after he claimed he would resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Israel’s war in Gaza soon after taking office. It’s far from a sure thing: along with the M23, which isn’t party to the deal, the Congolese government will still need to negotiate with scores of other armed rebel groups that operate in eastern DRC.
Read More: Trump Looks to Africa Next for Diplomatic Win: Balance of Power
M23 re-launched a rebellion in 2021 saying it was protecting the rights of ethnic Tutsis and other speakers of the Rwandan language in Congo.
Rwanda denies supporting the M23 but has backed proxy armed groups in eastern Congo for decades, citing security concerns, particularly the continued existence of a rebel group known as the FDLR with links to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The “neutralization” of the FDLR is one of the first priorities of Friday’s US-brokered agreement.
Read More: Why Congo, Rwanda Agreed to End Three Decades of War: QuickTake
Kayikwamba said the government is ready to begin that process through a sensitization campaign in the communities where the FDLR have lived for years “in order to offer to them the opportunity to withdraw, to surrender, and to be repatriated in their country.”
Multiple military campaigns over the past two decades have decimated the group, but some parts of Congo’s army have continued to work with FDLR forces against the M23, according to United Nations experts.
M23’s military and political leadership did not respond to multiple emails and text messages requesting comment.
Rwanda’s disengagement “includes the movement of troops, the movement of equipment, the movements of infrastructures and so on,” Kayikwamba said. “That has to follow a certain sequence, right? You cannot just do that from one day to another.”
“These are the little incremental steps” both sides need to implement successfully to build trust, she said.
Economic Integration
As the violence subsides, the countries are planning a regional economic integration pact that could include joint ventures to mine and process eastern Congo’s vast mineral resources, which include gold, tin and tantalum.
The subject is a sensitive one for the country, Kayikwamba said. Congo, US, European Union and United Nation experts have long accused Rwanda and other neighbors of stealing Congo’s natural resources.
A $760 million hydropower plant on the Ruzizi river that will provide power to Rwanda, Congo and Burundi is the first priority, Kayikwamba said.
“I think that is a project that is emblematic for regional integration,” she said.
The commitment of the Trump administration could help the detente succeed where so many others have failed, Kayikwamba said.
“What’s different now is that we have an agreement with a level of buy-in and of political commitment that we haven’t had in a very, very long time in the DRC or in the Great Lakes region,” she said. “It also shows a paradigm shift on the side of the US, which means that they would rather invest in peace in order to invest further.”
Congo is also nearing a separate strategic minerals deal with the US focused on the country’s world-class deposits of copper, cobalt and lithium, which are south of the conflict zone, President Felix Tshisekedi said in a nationally broadcast independence day speech on Monday.
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Donald Trump’s approach to Africa is very, well, African
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What a meeting with five leaders says about his administration’s interest in the continent
Jul 8th 2025
A Kenyan reads a morning newspaper with reports on the U.S. election on front page
Photograph: AP
It IS EASY to make a case that Donald Trump cares little about Africa. On July 1st he closed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), absorbing an institution that spent 40% of its budget on sub-Saharan Africa into the State Department. That department and the White House have yet to fill their senior Africa-related posts. AFRICOM, America’s military hub on the continent, speaks euphemistically of a new “African-partner-led” approach to security. The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which granted duty-free access to the American market for African exporters, expires on September 30th. Of the 19 countries subject to Mr Trump’s latest travel ban, ten are African.
Yet Mr Trump is showing surprising enthusiasm for meeting his African counterparts. On July 9th he will host presidents from five African countries in the first of what is mooted as a series of meetings. In May he met Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president. The leaders of Congo and Rwanda, which signed an American-brokered peace deal in June, may also soon visit. A much bigger summit involving dozens of African leaders is planned for September.
The upshot is a paradox. Under Mr Trump America will do a lot less in Africa than it has done for decades. But African leaders will get more chances to have the ear of the American president.
Mr Trump, who has called Namibia (or maybe Zambia) “Nambia” and said of Congo “I don’t know what that is”, may end up hosting more African leaders than any of his predecessors. Data from Judd Devermont, a former official covering Africa in the White House, show that George W. Bush holds the record, welcoming an African leader on 3% of his working days in office—or roughly once a month (see chart). If judged on his first term Mr Trump would be bottom of the list. In his second he may move higher up.
The meeting on July 9th is a sign of his personalised and often random approach. Beyond being from coastal states in or close to west Africa (Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal), the guests have little in common. There is no regional hegemon among them. Some have mining prospects, but they lack the mineral resources of, say, Congo.
Instead, the meeting is the result of lobbying by Umaro Sissoco Embaló, president of Guinea-Bissau. The former Portuguese colony of 2m people is one of Africa’s less important states; indeed it is probably the third-most important of the three African countries named Guinea. One of about 10% of all countries globally without an American embassy, it is best known as a coup-prone narco-state.
Yet Mr Sissoco Embaló fancies himself as Mr Trump’s Africa whisperer. The meeting is in keeping with his hyperactive approach to political networking. He has made around 300 foreign visits since taking power in 2020; many of them, according to one African leader, without being invited. An opposition figure from Bissau says that he will go to Washington with the message: “I’m your man, tell me what you want me to do to help you.”
For Mr Sissoco Embaló the meeting is a way of trying to win support for his efforts to stay in power. Mr Trump, who is as transactional as your typical African leader, felt it was worth an hour of his time to have lunch. The other guests were added later, seemingly on the basis that they were from the same rough neighbourhood without being of first-tier importance.
The Trump administration is clear that its priority in Africa is business. “We no longer see Africa as a continent in need of handouts, but as a capable commercial partner,” says Troy Fitrell, the outgoing senior official for Africa in the State Department. The goal is “to increase US exports and investment in Africa, eliminate our trade deficits and drive mutual prosperity.” If more business for America means less business for China, all the better.
To that end American ambassadors will have more of their performance assessed on whether they can seal deals for American firms. Government agencies that offer financial incentives to American firms to invest in Africa (and other places) have been told to get money out of the door more quickly.
The White House is hoping the leaders will bring ideas for projects. “I really hope that these heads of state come prepared and don’t expect that spontaneous good things will happen,” says Joshua Meservey of the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think-tank. “If they are unprepared and the meeting doesn’t go well, then it will make it harder for other African presidents.”
The culture of the Trump administration is familiar to many African leaders, argues Alex Vines of Chatham House, another think-tank. Neo-patrimonialism, a term used to describe how in post-colonial Africa formal state institutions exist alongside informal networks involving business associates and members of the same family or tribe, is a useful way of thinking about Trump world, says Nic Cheeseman of the University of Birmingham in Britain. Massad Boulos, father-in-law to Mr Trump’s youngest daughter and a member of a Lebanese family with business interests in Africa, is the president’s senior Africa adviser. Gentry Beach, a university friend of Donald Trump junior, is reportedly exploring a deal to invest in a mine in eastern Congo in the wake of the peace deal with Rwanda.
Yet it is far from clear that Africa benefits when American policy is all realism and no altruism. America has fallen behind China as African countries’ main trading partner in large part because it has less to sell and less demand for the continent’s natural resources. Most African countries lack leverage. “Each deal is an appeasement mechanism,” argues Gyude Moore, a former Liberian cabinet minister. “Something to stave off further deterioration of an already negative situation.” Except for some resource-rich countries, most will not be able to offset the impact of aid cuts and higher tariffs.
Some of the poorest countries in Africa have tried to gain advantage by offering to take migrants deported from America. These include Lesotho, whose textiles factories are downsizing because they depend on AGOA. On July 3rd the US Supreme Court cleared the way for eight migrants to be sent to South Sudan, though only one of the group is South Sudanese.
Mr Devermont notes that “on balance” presidents with the most Oval Office meetings with African leaders left the largest impact on the continent. Mr Bush created PEPFAR, an anti-AIDS initiative. Kennedy set up USAID. Mr Trump’s legacy, if he leaves one, will be defined by deals, not do-goodery. ■
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How mining companies are adapting to newly assertive African states
Global race for critical minerals has emboldened countries to demand more control of their resources
www.ft.com
How mining companies are adapting to newly assertive African states
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Global race for critical minerals has emboldened countries to demand more control of their resources
Barrick Mining closed the Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine in January after Mali’s government, which owns a 20 per cent stake in the project, carted off gold from the mine to a custodial bank © Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Malian government helicopters landed unannounced at a Barrick Mining complex on Thursday and carted away gold, escalating a dispute between the parties and highlighting challenges facing miners as African countries assert more control over their natural resources.
The trend spans west and central Africa’s “coup belt” that includes Mali, Niger and Guinea, where military regimes have seized power in recent years, as well as elected governments such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Governments have also been emboldened to act by the global race for critical minerals essential to high-tech and defence industries, as well as the transition to cleaner energy.
The raid on the Loulo-Gounkoto complex — in which the government seized over a tonne of gold — has added to the woes of the Canadian company which had already lost operational rights to the mine, after it closed it in January following another government seizure of the precious metal.
Niger has moved to nationalise a uranium mine jointly operated with French state-owned Orano, while Guinea has revoked scores of licences across its gold, bauxite, diamond, graphite and iron sectors.
A worker loads sacks of cobalt at the Etoile mine, operated by Chemaf, in Katanga province near Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Wednesday, December 22, 2021
A worker loads sacks of cobalt at the Etoile mine, operated by Chemaf, in Katanga province near Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of Congo © Lucien Kahozi/Bloomberg
DR Congo last month extended a ban of the export of cobalt — a critical battery metal — in an attempt to boost prices, leading to commodity company Glencore declaring a force majeure on some of its contractual obligations.
“Western companies are often still playing by some of the old rules of the game . . . in terms of how to handle a government that’s fundamentally at odds with you,” said Daniel Litvin, chief executive of Resource Resolutions, a mineral conflict resolution company.
“[They] need to make their game more sophisticated” and get a deeper understanding of host governments’ motivations — something Litvin said Chinese companies were better at — rather than taking the “patronising view” of assuming they were acting irrationally.
While some governments have embraced more overt resource nationalism by demanding a greater share of revenues and increasing state participation in joint ventures, others have sought to move up the value chain by exerting control over the processing of raw materials.
Some democracies have sought to extract concessions from foreign miners in the run-up to elections, and wider geopolitical considerations have also played a role as some countries — such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — reduced ties with former colonial rulers and other western nations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Mali’s military leader Assimi Goïta shake hands after a signing ceremony following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on June 23, 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Mali’s military leader Assimi Goïta shake hands after talks at the Kremlin last month © Gavriil Grigorov/POOL/AFP/Getty Images
Mali’s military leader Assimi Goïta last month broke ground on a gold refinery project being built with a Russian conglomerate and a Swiss investment company, which he said would assert the nation’s “economic sovereignty”.
Risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft said resource nationalism had become a prominent theme in its engagement with clients in extractive sectors. Other industry figures said mining groups were adopting a “multitrack approach” and sometimes pursued back-channel negotiations even as they pursued legal cases against host governments.
But such deals can carry the risk of being perceived as improper or done under duress. The concerns of anti-corruption advocates were heightened after President Donald Trump instructed his justice department to pause enforcement of a law banning bribery of foreign officials.
Litvin at Resource Resolutions warned that deals won by conducting unethical practises tended to be “short term wins”.
“I think western companies should double down on their commitment to international standards . . . It’s a short term win if companies engage in malpractice,” he said.
Mucahid Durmaz, a Verisk Maplecroft analyst, said companies could improve relations with host governments by promoting broader socio-economic development, such as through investment in infrastructure. It was “no longer viable” to just exploit resources and move on, he added.
They should also consider helping countries that want to capture greater value from their extractive industries, with Ghana, Tanzania and DR Congo all having expressed an interest in taking a bigger share of minerals processing, he said.
Mark Bristow, chief executive of Barrick, said in a letter posted on the company’s website that it was committed to Mali despite the “extraordinary and unprecedented challenges”.
“Our relationship with Mali represents more than a business partnership — it exemplifies the shared value creation that has defined our approach to responsible mining across Africa and around the world,” he said.
A Maxar satellite image on April 18 2025 shows the port development at Morebaya, Guinea which will serve as a coastal hub for transporting the Simandou mine output
A Maxar satellite image shows the Guinea port development at Morebaya which will serve as a coastal hub for transporting the Simandou mine output © Maxar Technologies/Getty Images
François Conradie, a Morocco-based political economist at Oxford Economics, pointed to the Simandou project in Guinea as an example of mining companies investing in infrastructure development. Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto and its partners, including several Chinese firms, are constructing railway and port facilities.
He also warned that companies needed to avoid “sitting” on licenses without exploiting them, depriving cash-strapped governments of much needed flows of taxes and royalties.
Orano delayed production at the Imouraren mine in northern Niger for years as uranium prices collapsed, and was later stripped of the rights to the site as relations between Niger and France collapsed.
“If you come to a country, you have to put money into the state coffers,” Conradie said.
But analysts warned that governments also needed to tread carefully so that they did not deter investment in their industries. Durmaz noted that the risk for investors in Mali and Niger had “shifted” in the wrong direction, while Guinea had “more risk than benefits”.
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