Congo and Critical Minerals: What Are the Costs of America’s Peace?
By Evelyn Namakula Mayanja
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. All photos provided by The Conversation from various sources.
Evelyn Namakula Mayanja is an assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies at Carleton University.
In March 2025, President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) offered the country’s critical mineral reserves to the United States and Europe in exchange for security and stability.
At the time, the March 23 (M23) militia insurgency was unleashing violence: killing civilians, committing sexual violence, displacing communities and looting mineral resources. Since 1996, eastern Congo has been engulfed in wars and armed conflicts driven by regional powers and more than 120 armed groups.
The U.S.-brokered peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC raises critical questions: Is this a genuine path to sustainable peace, or a continuation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy to secure access to critical minerals through coercive diplomacy?
Global arms race for Congolese critical minerals
The global shift toward renewable energy, digital infrastructure and military modernization has sparked a geopolitical scramble for critical and rare earth minerals.
In early 2025, Trump signed a series of executive orders that introduced aggressive and imperial-style tactics to secure access to mineral wealth. He threatened Canada with annexation and tariffs, demanded access to Greenland’s resources and linked U.S. support for Ukraine to access to its mineral reserves.
The DRC’s offer must be viewed through this lens of global resource competition.
Congolese Critical Minerals and Wealth
The DRC holds some of the world’s richest deposits of critical minerals and metals. A 2012 article estimated the value of Congo’s untapped mineral wealth at US$24 trillion, a figure nearing the U.S. first-quarter 2025 GDP of $29.962 trillion.
The DRC produces 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt, ranks fourth in copper, sixth in industrial diamonds and also possesses vast reserves of nickel and lithium, including the Manono deposit expected to yield 95,170 tonnes of crude lithium.
But the struggle to control these resources has fuelled a cycle of armed violence, displacement and exploitation. Despite several peace agreements, peace and stability remain elusive.
America’s interests in Congo
U.S. involvement in Congo stretches back to the Cold War, when it played a role in the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first elected prime minister who sought economic sovereignty.
In 1996, the U.S. was accused of backing Rwanda and Uganda in the initial invasion of eastern Congo. A U.S. diplomat, “Mr. Hankins,” was quoted in Goma saying: “I am here …to represent American interests.”
In 2024, President Joe Biden met Tshisekedi to advance the Lobito Corridor, a strategic trade route to counter China’s dominance in the region. Chinese companies currently control around 80 per cent of Congo’s copper market.
When Trump signed the 2025 peace agreement, he openly stated the U.S. would gain “a lot of mineral rights … foreign trade and investment from the regional critical mineral supply chains.”
U.S.-brokered peace deal
The deal, however, prioritizes America’s access to minerals over the well-being of Congolese citizens. Historically, Congo’s mineral wealth has enriched elites and foreign powers while leaving its people impoverished and vulnerable. The new agreement could entrench existing inequalities and inflame tensions further.
The U.S. has also cut off aid for war survivors, including emergency medical kits and antiretrovirals for rape victims, undermining humanitarian efforts.
Crucially, the agreement overlooks:
- The root causes and drivers of conflict at national, regional and international levels.
- The role of Rwanda and Uganda, whose militaries and intelligence services have long been implicated in supporting groups like M23. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has referred to M23 as “our brothers” and threatened military action in Congo.
- The voices of Congolese civil society, war survivors and the public, who were excluded from the negotiation process.
- State fragility and institutional collapse — major enablers of protracted violence.
- The grievances of Hutu and Tutsi communities in the DRC, deeply rooted in colonial and regional politics.
- The presence of more than 120 armed groups, many of them proxies for foreign powers engaging in what some scholars call “geocriminality.”
Between January and February 2025 alone, more than 7,000 people were killed in the DRC. The United Nations and several human rights organizations have documented mass atrocities, including crimes of genocidal magnitude.
A path toward real peace
The peace agreement fails to demand justice for crimes committed against the Congolese people. Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege condemned the deal for “rewarding aggression, legitimizing the plundering of Congo’s natural resources, and sacrificing justice for a fragile peace.”
It also ignores the roles of international mining corporations and external entities that have long profited from Congo’s instability.
True and lasting peace in the DRC cannot be imposed from the outside. U.S.-led mineral extraction without justice risks deepening the crisis. Since 1999, UN peacekeepers have been deployed in the Congo , yet violence continues.
Sustainable peace will require:
- An end to impunity;
- Thorough investigations into war crimes;
- Regional truth-telling processes;
- Justice and reparations for victims;
- And most importantly, inclusion of Congolese voices in shaping their future.
Without these commitments, the U.S. risks replicating a long history of exploitation, trading in minerals while ignoring the human cost.
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