Politics
Trump Steals Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Minerals and Exposes US Minions
On 27th of June 2025, DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in Washington, on mainly hidden terms.
Trump and Washington’s Minions
Surprising, Rwanda was one party signing the said peace agreement, despite repeatedly claiming that it was not involved in the war. Paradoxically, its claims that Tutsi people in Congo have been marginalized and needed protection from Rwanda, which also funds the M-23 rebel group, views that are now discredited. For instance, if both M-23 and Rwanda will stop fighting after the US gets rights for minerals in the DRC, as the peace agreements states, it means Tutsis never needed protection in the first place. Tutsis probably never had significant security or economic grievances, and have been instrumentalized by their backers to secure resources for the US.
Nonetheless, Donald Trump boasted in his bombastic style how people in his administration, were helping him broker the aforementioned ceasefire in a region, and described how people in Eastern DRC had been hacking each other with Machete for decades. This statement revealed his complete lack of understanding of how war is waged in this region. He admitted that he did not know much about the region, which is not surprising for a figurehead of the US empire. In reality, Washington has been driving the war in Eastern DRC for decades, including through Belgium, Rwanda, and Uganda. Noteworthy, the nuclear bomb the US used to decimate Hiroshima in 1945 was made using uranium from Congo, which was obtained without concern for ‘mineral rights’ making it curious why Trump wants them now.
Trump Does Not Know Much About DRC, but the Empire Does
The US empire has been interfering in the Congo since the 1950s, including by engineering chaos and divisions that led to a coup against the country’s democratic Leader Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Washington’s Office of The Historian would later craft a narrative justifying the coup by blaming it on the fear of a supposed communist takeover, which in a real sense is a psychopathic explanation designed to absolve The US of responsibility for blood thirst, and neocolonialism. It is palatable for Washington’s elites to hide schemes for stealing Congo’s minerals behind imaginary communist threats. In reality, the possibility that Lumumba, would control his country’s immense mineral resources for the benefit of his population made Belgians and Europeans to sponsor separatism in the eastern Katanga region and the US to engineer a coup and bring a dictator to power. Notably, DRC’s eastern region remains a playground for countries with imperial ambitions, including Uganda, and Rwanda, which support the M-23 rebel group. The Trump administration is pretending to bring these countries to the negotiating table, while his real interest is securing minerals, a reality that reveals how his countries have been driving them. Otherwise, how transferring the region’s mineral rights to US corporations is supposed to erase the supposed grievances of Tutsi tribe or M-23 rebel group is completely unclear. Therefore, this conflict occurring in a poor region that does not manufacture weapons, but still uses advanced weaponry, points to Western interference.
Washington has historically managed to maintain poverty and instability in Congo after deposing Patrice Lumumba by propping up, Mobutu Sese Seko, and endless wars perpetrated by rebels supported by Uganda and Rwanda. Mobottu was a dictator that caused numerous deaths through executing dissidents, causing regional conflicts, and economic collapse for 32 years, ending in 1997. The US frames this unacceptable loss to Africans as a justifiable cost for its unsolicited fight against communism, which shows the West’s entitlement to others’ lives and resources. Over the long period of crises in Congo, Washington did not mention that minerals were being stolen and taken to the West.
The level of destabilization caused by the US in Congo has enabled Uganda and Rwanda, to repeatedly invade DRC, with their leaders admitting in some instances that such adventures brought financial gain. From as early as 2009, the Global Policy Forum stated that the Rwandese government was conducting military operations in Congo for over a decade, the cost of which was being paid through plundered minerals. This war was being conducted through various Tutsi militias, a trend that has continued to date using the justification of trying to protect Congolese Tutsis in Southern and Nothern Kivu provinces, claims that make no sense. As noted earlier; had Tutsis faced a real threat from DRC authorities, they would not stop fighting simply because the US will gain mineral rights in their region. Unfortunately, some African leaders do not perceive that they are being manipulated to plunder DRC for foreign interests. Neither Rwanda nor Uganda have industries that can make use of rare-earth minerals being plundered, meaning they have only been facilitating the theft and transfer of these to the West. It would make more sense if these countries concentrated on trade by purchasing these raw materials and establishing processing and manufacturing firms to generate long-term wealth for the region. However, their preference for militarism and plunder condemns the region to never-ending war that has resulted in the deaths of millions.
Washington’s Theft Does Not Equal Competitiveness
Trump’s attempts to secure through agreements what his empire has traditionally secured through continuous destabilization may signal the waning of his empire’s confidence in chaos. One way of interpreting Trump’s actions is by borrowing from past experiences where colonial powers bound newly independent countries with agreements when their military force waned. However, this possibility is undesirable for Africans, since neocolonial control continues through these agreements. Also, Trump’s action can be interpreted as bragging about Washington’s power to its competitors to show others that it still retains the power to force countries to pass over their strategic resources to the US. However, the overall effect of this swindling is dubious since Washington will not gain anything new, but what it has been stealing in the past. Noteworthy, these resources have not necessarily made Washington any competitive over its appointed adversaries.
For instance, while the US developed its first nuclear weapons through stolen resources, other countries were able to secure these resources through other means. In addition, Washington’s access to Congo’s rare earth through its wars has not necessarily made it more competitive in developing computers, smart devices, and the internet over those that obtained these resources through legal means. For instance, China has been able to develop cheaper and more efficient alternatives to American computers, internet network systems, and electric vehicles using resources obtained legally, defeating Washington’s oligarchy driven by state-backed plunder.
Therefore, Trump’s latest efforts to brag about swindling DRC of its strategic resources through minions will historically amount to a confession of burglary in the medium term rather than securing appreciable advantage.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
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