Fighting rages on while President Trump declares deal "a glorious triumph." Congo, one of the poorest countries on the planet also signed an economic agreement with the United States to share its mineral wealth including cobalt, copper, and lithium.
Trump's approach displays a flawed understanding of peace itself. Given a paradigm that prioritizes economic access over reconciliation, even a cautious form of optimism is hard to justify.
Trump’s Congo-Rwanda deal is hailed as diplomatic triumph. But behind the photo ops lies a familiar exchange: African resources for Western power.
Congolese civil society rejects U.S.-brokered peace with Rwanda: ‘any agreement that strips the nation of its natural wealth would constitute the crime of pillage.’
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Those who dig up the valuable mineral often work in horrific and dangerous conditions, says Siddharth Kara, an international expert on modern-day slavery and author of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.
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