Why Trump’s Congo Deal Is Falling Apart

JOSHUA Z. WALKER is an Associate Fellow in the Africa Programme at Chatham House and a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. REAGAN MIVIRI is an attorney and a Senior Researcher at Ebuteli, a research institute in Kinshasa. JASON K. STEARNS is an Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University. Joshua Z. Walker, Reagan Miviri, and Jason K. Stearns When the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda met in Washington, D.C., in early December 2025, for a ceremony sealing the peace deal that ended four years of fighting, it was meant to showcase U.S. President Donald Trump’s ability to settle even the most intractable conflicts. Trump blanketed the signing event with his trademark hyperbole: “Look at how they love each other,” he marveled about the two presidents. But Congo’s Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame refused to shake hands. Rwandan troops were already massing in South Kivu Province to launch a major new offensive. Within days, the South Kivu town of Uvira—the last urban center north of the resource-rich Katanga region, 150 miles to the south—had fallen to the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group. The Trump administration’s approach to Congo has offered a test case for its new Africa strategy—a transactional one that prioritizes dealmaking, trades political support for natural resource deals, and threatens foreign governments with sanctions or the withholding of U.S. foreign assistance. Over the past 18 months, Washington has taken on a prominence in Congo not seen since the Cold War. It has sought to mediate the conflict in eastern Congo; supported U.S. companies seeking access to the country’s substantial cobalt, copper, and lithium reserves; and helped build one of the largest economic corridors on the continent. The Trump administration is betting it can use its economic and political leverage to wrest control of Congolese critical minerals while gaining prestige by imposing peace in the east. Washington has made some progress toward both of these aims. But its handling of Congo is also a demonstration of the limits of Trump’s transactional method. His administration’s reliance on swift, broad agreements that postpone haggling over tough details will make it harder to achieve its long-term goals of establishing lasting regional stability and disrupting China’s dominance over critical minerals supply chains. Most worryingly, an “America first” policy is likely to favor close relations with Congolese political leaders over democracy and human rights, an approach that could end up destabilizing the country. Unless the administration adjusts its approach, the peace process in eastern Congo is at risk of collapse, U.S. mining ventures could amount to little, and the Congolese president could accelerate his authoritarian turn. Conflict in eastern Congo stretches back 30 years. Over the course of many rounds of fighting involving different permutations of antagonists, the main axis of violence has been between the governments in Kinshasa and Kigali. The Rwandan army invaded for the first time in 1996, in pursuit of armed groups that helped perpetrate the Rwandan genocide two years prior; since then, the Rwandan government has backed four rebellions in the area. It cites the threat of Congo-based Rwandan rebels (which, in fact, has declined dramatically since 1996), but its motivations also include the establishment of a buffer zone, the extraction of natural resources, and the need to manage potential challenges by its own army and justify suppression of domestic dissent. In late 2021, the M23 rebel group, which had been largely dormant since its defeat in 2013, began a new series of attacks in eastern Congo. The ensuing war has displaced several million people. The East African Community, an eight-country intergovernmental organization promoting regional integration, attempted to broker talks between Congolese belligerents and deployed an intervention force; the Angolan government hosted talks between Congo and Rwanda on behalf of the African Union; and the Southern African Development Community sent troops to back the Congolese army. All these initiatives failed, stymied by the dysfunction of the Congolese army and the recalcitrance of the Congolese and Rwandan governments. The European Union, meanwhile, has been unable to find consensus to implement broad-ranging sanctions or other measures against Rwanda, largely due to some members’ eagerness to maintain good relations with Kagame. It seemed that Trump’s reelection, in late 2024, might exacerbate the fighting. Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, fell to M23 rebels just a week after Trump’s second term began, and most observers suspected that Rwanda and the M23 had timed the assault to take advantage of the interregnum, when key administration officials would not yet be in place to enable a quick and decisive reaction. With a push from career diplomats (and after an M23 advance on

Why Trump’s Congo Deal Is Falling Apart

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Why Trump’s Congo Deal Is Falling Apart

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