by
Austin BayJuly 2, 2025
Trump administration "transactional diplomacy" envoys definitely tackle the tough wars -- but this time, the process has produced a bona fide peace deal.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda aren't high-tech Ukraine and Russia. Russian nuclear weapons and proximity to NATO nations give that war a deadly global relevance.
However, a Trump administration minerals for security assistance agreement with Congo (signed this past April) has led to a tenuous peace deal between the two central African antagonists, a deal that promises real benefits to violence-wracked Congo and an odd militant, strongman Rwandan government that is credibly committed to free market economic modernization. Rwanda manufactures Volkswagens.
Indeed, the Congo-Rwandan war is as complex as the Russo-Ukraine savagery. It also has enormous 21st-century strategic implications. A U.S.-led resolution of the conflict profoundly affects this century's critical geo-strategic rivalry: America vs. Communist China.
Congo-Rwanda epitomizes the two-dozen (or more) conflicts afflicting central Africa. Complexity sketched: clashing political interests, pre-colonial and post-colonial border disputes, land use (herders vs. farmers), criminal gangs (e.g., smugglers, elephant ivory poachers) and "non-state" militia and terrorist groups. Complexity squared: money from powerful, competing economic actors who seek access to or control of Congo's mineral deposits. Their cash empowers the combatants.
Cube the complexity: lack of roads, spotty electricity, central Africa's disease pool (e.g., Ebola virus). Result: a chaotic mess that matters in an impoverished geographic expanse roughly the size of Western Europe.
Bad recent history: When former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko fell in 1997, war erupted throughout Congo. A series of peace agreements -- U.N. blessed -- purportedly ended the Great Congo War in 2003. That conflict killed 3.5 million to 5 million people. Central African body counts are notoriously inaccurate. Blame terrain and poor communications.
According to recent reports, Russia has suffered 1 million casualties since February 2022. Blame Vlad Putin.
Congo-Rwanda has the complexity of genocide. The 1994 Rwandan Genocide precedes the Great Congo War. Radical Rwandan Hutus slaughtered Rwandan Tutsis. When a Tutsi force from Uganda counter-attacked, the guilty Hutus fled to Congo -- and became the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Too complex to solve?
Trump's Transactional Diplomacy Gambit offers the radical notion that creating wealth en masse can heal grievous divisions. It also offers the transactional ally an implied (if not explicit) security relationship with the U.S.
It's not a new idea security-wise. FDR's September 1940 "destroyers for bases" deal with Britain. It led to Lend-Lease.
The economic payoff is the Trump Card, so to speak.
In February, Congo -- following the U.S.-Ukraine transactions -- asked Washington if the U.S. was interested in acquiring or investing in Congo's enormous and globally unique trove of critical and rare mineral deposits.
As I noted in a column written in late April, Congo has gold, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum (coltan), lithium, gold and diamonds. "The uranium for America's World War II atom bombs came from the then-Belgian Congo. Mobile phone and computer manufacturers need coltan (columbite-tantalite). Cobalt is a 21st-century treasure. Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt ore, a must-have for electric vehicles."
Congo has also exposed communist China as an empire of Chinese imperialist crooks. In 2006 and 2007, Chinese front companies began buying Congo's cobalt, copper and rare earth mineral operations. In 2008 and 2009, China signed the so-called China Deal of 2008 Congo's Kabila dictatorship.
The overall deal was supposedly worth billions. China was supposed to build roads, electrical generation facilities, lots of goodies. Ah, but Beijing built ... next to nothing. In 2021, Congo condemned China and began legal proceedings to end Beijing's fraud.
Is the Congo-Rwanda War over? After the signing ceremony and a meeting with Trump Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, Nduhungirehe said: "There is no doubt that the road ahead will not be easy. But with the continued support of the United States and other partners, we believe that a turning point has been reached."
The agreement didn't flinch from the problems. The AP noted the agreement --hammered out by the U.S. State Department -- "has provisions on territorial integrity, prohibition of hostilities and the disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration of non-state armed groups."