Is Trump's new peacemaking model working in DR Congo?

An AFC/M23 soldier stands guard with a Kalashnikov rifle in front of a crowd in Goma, DR Congo

A rebel soldier stands alongside a crowd in Goma, as part of an outreach project designed to build trust with the civilian population

(Image credit: Jospin Mwisha / AFP / Getty Images)

By The Week UK

published 10 August 2025

Donald Trump, the self-declared "president of peace", says he deserves a Nobel Prize for his efforts to end the world's wars. And actually, when it comes to one conflict in particular, he is "more than deserving", said Jarrett Stepman in The Daily Signal (Washington DC).

In June, Trump brokered a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, ending a vicious, 30-year war that has "claimed the lives of an estimated six million people". He secured the historic deal in "typical Trumpian fashion" – promising diplomatic and security support in exchange for US access to the DRC's lucrative mineral deposits – and last Saturday, officials from both countries met to begin implementing the so-called Washington agreement, paving the way for a new era of stability and prosperity. "Wins all around."

Trump is credited with promoting "a new model of peacemaking", said Farouk Chothia on BBC News, one that combines populist showboating with commercial wheeling and dealing. His main motive for ending this conflict may be a cynical one – to open up the DRC's reserves of cobalt, lithium and manganese, all of which are used to power modern tech for US companies. But if it stops fighting that has killed thousands and displaced millions in eastern DRC this year alone, it can't be "dismissed out of hand".

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Except it has "little chance of bringing lasting peace", said Ledjely (Conakry). It fails to address the root causes of this long-running crisis, notably "the chronic weakness of the Congolese state". A succession of leaders from Laurent-Désiré Kabila to current president Felix Tshisekedi have focused on holding on to power in Kinshasa rather than serving the people in the east, 1,800 miles away, where government has been "virtually non-existent". So the region has been left wide open to the ravages of armed groups like M23, who in January, with the backing of Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, made a lightning advance far into the eastern region.

Trump's truce will do little to better the lives of ordinary people, said Gershwin Wanneburg on Al Jazeera (Doha). Many see it as foreign exploitation camouflaged as diplomatic triumph: they're calling it the "Berlin Conference 2.0" – a nod to the 19th century congress at which European powers divided up Africa. And the deal isn't that great for the US, either. Years of violence have scared many foreign firms off from doing business in the region. With M23 so volatile a force, and the DRC government so fragile, "the US may be the ones who end up with a raw deal".

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