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Johannesburg, South Africa – During the invitation of the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshekedi, the Trump administration was interrupted to carry out negotiations to end the end of the War raged in the east of the country Between the DRC forces and the rebels that would be supported by Rwanda. A peace contract was initialed Wednesday evening by officials from neighboring countries, and it should be signed formally late next week in Washington by their leaders, and witness by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the State Department said.
While many members of the region will welcome the end of the long -standing and deadly conflict, Daniel Van Dalen, principal analyst of the African intelligence company, Signal Risk, says that the way the agreement was chopped with the signals a major change in geopolitical efforts to end crises on the continent. The days of the diplomatic soft power, he says, are finished.
Officials said the agreement was part of the United States’s new offer under President Trump to establish relations in Africa which are more transactional and less focused on the exercise of the soft power through diplomacy and investment.
The agreement took place after three days of talks in Washington between the DRC and the Rwandan delegations – and after many previous unsuccessful attempts to obtain an agreement between the two countries.
Arlette Bashizi / Reuters 
If it is implemented, the agreement will end the fights in the DRC of the East. It could also bring billions of dollars of American investment in the region, which is rich in minerals coltan, cobalt, lithium, copper and gold, which are all essential for the manufacture of electric vehicles, smartphones, computers and a wide range of other high -tech products, satellites with military weapons systems.
The curse of the mineral wealth of the Congo
The DRC is a country about the size of Alaska and combined Texas, but its large mineral reserves Sit largely in the Far East, near the border with Rwanda. Many inhabitants call it a curse, because the fight against resource control has led to three decades of fighting in the region, kill some six million peopleAccording to an analysis in 2022 by the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
More than 125 different armed groups fought for access to mineral reserves, but the most important, the M23 militia, is the only thought to be supported by a neighboring country – Rwanda. The United States government and United Nations officials believe that Rwanda militarily supports M23, although Rwandan officials have repeatedly denied this.
Van Dalen says that M23 is different from other armed groups in the region because it has sought a territorial control and expansion. The 5,000 estimated soldiers of the group took two provinces in the eastern DRC in recent months. In a short time, he said, M23 has set up parallel government structures, with tax systems, in these areas, and will be very difficult to remove.
Detractors of the Peace Agreement in the United States are skeptical about what it will work, because M23 is not a signatory to the agreement and has not been involved directly in the negotiations, and the Rwandan government refuses official links with the group.
Van Dalen said that the agreement will only succeed if the M23 remains in the conditions. Rwanda came out of the previous peace talks, while M23 has reached a new territory in the DRC.
“This remains true today, because the M23 still pushes, despite the peace negotiations, for territorial gains,” Van Dalen told CBS News on Thursday.
Since the seizure by M23 of the two provinces of the DRC, Van Dalen said that there had been a wave in Rwandan mineral exports – a push representing more than the country could not explain its own limited reserves.
CBS News includes sources in the region that Rwanda indicated a desire to withdraw its troops, which would be supporting M23 Fighters in the region, while the DRC could be ready for the idea of certain minerals, on locally and small scale of its territory, sold by Rwanda.
The Trump administration looking for offers: “high risk, with large rewards”
In the midst of peace negotiations in Washington, the stepfather of the daughter of President Trump Tiffany, Massad Boulous, was brought as a main advisor at the White House on Africa.
He was quickly sent to the DRC, Rwanda and neighboring countries, to “meet the heads of state and business leaders to advance lasting peace efforts in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and to promote American investment in the private sector in the region”.
This work has been concentrated, said Van Dalen, on the trade in separate agreements with the DRC, to grant access to its mineral reserves and with Rwanda, on a potential expelled program. A previous agreement between Great Britain and Rwanda, so that the United Kingdom expelled migrants to the African nation, fell into a scales even before he begins – Following the decisions of the British courts, then a change of government in the United Kingdom
Offers like this can give the White House the possibility of praising peace manufacturing efforts while obtaining access to critical resources for the United States, but this can also help to counter the domination of China in the African mineral sector, said Van Dalen. It is a tactic that China and Russia have used for many years.
Chinese companies currently Check more than 80% of cobalt Reserves in the DRC, according to estimates by the United States government.
Secretary of State Rubio will attend the signing of the DRC-Rwanda agreement in Washington on June 27, the State Department announced in its Wednesday evening statement, which only provided waves.
He declared that the parties had agreed from “provisions on respect for territorial integrity and a ban on hostilities; disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration of non -state armed groups”, as well as “the establishment of a joint security coordination mechanism,” facilitating the return of refugees and in -house people, facilitating human access, and regional integration work. “”
US companies have had mining operations in the region several decades ago, but they left when armed conflict and corruption in regional governments have made these operations too risky.
The president of the DRC, Tshekedi, recently revised legislation that could reform the country’s tax code in a manner that makes its mining sector more attractive for Western commercial interests.
The proposed changes had already aroused new interests, the American financing committed to developing the Lobito corridor – a train line to connect the “copper belt” locked by the DRC to an Angolan Atlantic Ocean port.
In November, the president of the time, Joe Biden, visited Angola and saw the port operations of Corridor Lobito in the first hand. The following month, the Biden administration has announced Additional funding of US $ 560 million for the project.
Van Dalen said that if the United States was able to manage regional tension and maintain a peace agreement in place, it would be “a high risk, with large rewards, both for the region and the United States itself”, adding that, in its opinion, this would also adapt to the “transactional nature of Trump”.
