Behind the promise of peace, a set of US-backed agreements reshape how the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s minerals, infrastructure, and political choices are tied to Washington’s strategic priorities. Under these arrangements, unlicensed and prospective mining areas are pooled into a reserve that gives the United States privileged, priority access to future concessions. As security and diplomatic backing for the Congolese government against Rwanda and M23 becomes linked to mineral access and supply-chain politics, it raises questions about sovereignty, long-term peace and stability, and who ultimately pays for it.
There has been a wave of international attention since US President Donald Trump, together with the governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, announced a peace deal intended to end the occupation by the Rwanda-backed March 23 Movement (M23) in eastern Congo. The agreement, officially framed as the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity, commits both states to ending hostilities, respecting territorial integrity, and developing economic cooperation, particularly in mining and infrastructure. With Washington positioning itself as a mediator, the deal was presented by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssoufas as well as the US Department of State as a significant and historic milestone after decades of violence.
The fighting has primarily involved the Congolese government and several armed groups, first and foremost the M23. After years of relative calm, the conflict escalated again in 2022, drawing on unresolved legacies of the Rwandan genocide, regional power struggles, colonial legacies and deep-seated governance failures within the DRC. These dynamics are rooted in long histories of foreign intervention, militarisation, and resource extraction that have repeatedly turned eastern Congo into a battleground for profit. The violence cannot be understood only as a local or regional crisis, but as part of wider political and economic structures that continue to fuel instability and channel mineral wealth out of the country. Cities such as Goma and Bukavu, located at key commercial and political crossroads, have become central targets in Rwanda-backed military operations by the M23. Violence around Goma and other strategic cities escalated again in 2025, resulting in the displacement of millions of civilians and thousands of deaths over the past year alone.
A peace deal tied to economic interests
But the DRC–Rwanda peace agreement did not come alone. The accord, formally signed in Washington in December 2025 after initial foreign-minister-level negotiations in June, was accompanied by a set of interlinked economic and strategic agreements involving the US. In addition to a Regional Economic Integration Framework (REIF) between the DRC and Rwanda and the core peace accord, the US and the DRC signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that includes a far-reaching cooperation agenda.
Although the Strategic Partnership Agreement has been presented as an instrument of stability, economic growth, and regional integration, it also functions as a mechanism through which the US seeks to secure priority access to the DRC’s critical mineral wealth. The agreement formally declares the DRC a “strategic partner” of the US and goes far beyond what is usually meant by conventional development cooperation. It focuses on securing supply chains for critical minerals, aligning mining and infrastructure projects with US industrial priorities, and encouraging greater US private investment in Congo’s mining sector.
The Congolese mining sector is rich in critical materials, such as copper, cobalt and lithium that the US needs for military and defence and the development of green technologies. To structure US access to these resources, the agreement introduces the concept of a Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR). Under this mechanism, unlicensed or prospective mining areas, those not yet assigned to any operator, are pooled into a reserve from which the US gains privileged access. This does not involve taking over existing projects, but it does shape the future of DRC’s mining sector by determining which assets come onto the market and who gets first access to them.
Through this arrangement, Washington achieves two core strategic objectives. First, it secures preferential access for US companies to future Congolese mining projects, while granting them exclusive negotiation windows before any other actors are considered. Second, it reshapes the regulatory environment in a way that makes it politically and economically difficult for strategic competitors, most notably China, to expand further in the DRC. This matters because Chinese companies are estimated to control around 80 percent of the country’s cobalt output.
Moreover, the Strategic Partnership Agreement commits the DRC to actively align its policy choices with US strategic objectives. A key example is transport infrastructure. The Sakania-Lobito Corridor, connecting mineral-rich regions of southern DRC to the Atlantic coast via Angola, has become a central pillar of the agreement. The text includes a specific provision obliging the DRC to ensure that so-called “qualifying projects” use the Lobito Corridor for exports wherever feasible.
In practice, this promotes Lobito as the preferred export route for minerals linked to US supply chains, even where alternative routes, particularly toward the east, might be shorter or cheaper. This gives Washington indirect influence over how eastern Congolese minerals move through the region and into global markets.
Peace on Washington’s Terms
Critics argue that these agreements effectively condition peace and economic engagement on compliance with US strategic priorities. They reflect Washington’s broader geopolitical frustrations, especially its limited success in securing its strategic and economic gains in Ukraine. In this context, peace in eastern Congo risks becoming less a goal in itself than a way to stabilise access to critical minerals and enable business interests. While presented to solve a conflict and to make long lasting peace, the deal suggests that US engagement remains driven by strategic and commercial calculations, with the DRC’s stability seen mainly in terms of what it can deliver to external actors. For the Congolese government, the appeal is evident: promises of investment, diplomatic backing, and US political support at a time of acute security pressure. But embedding US access to minerals into the peace architecture fundamentally shifts the balance of the deal.
Congolese policy choices on resource governance, export routes, and foreign investment are now tightly linked to US geopolitical goals, leaving Kinshasa with limited choice to cooperate with other partners.
But why did the DRC agree to accept such unequal terms?
The DRC did not approach the US primarily for technical assistance or economic cooperation, but in search of political and security backing, particularly against Rwanda and M23. In exchange for that support, Kinshasa was willing to offer unusually strong incentives, including exclusivity clauses and priority access to future mineral projects. From this perspective, the imbalance of the agreements is not accidental but the price of US diplomatic protection. It reflects a clear trade-off: strategic minerals and privileged access in exchange for political and security support, rather than direct military involvement.
All these three agreements – the DRC-Rwanda Peace Agreement, the REIF and the US-DRC Strategic Economic Partnership – appear to have had limited immediate impact on the ground. The occupation of eastern Congo has persisted despite the Washington signing. Rwandan troops have not fully withdrawn, the M23 has not laid down arms permanently, and violence continues in parts of the region.
While the institutional architecture to manage mineral flows and economic cooperation is in place, the drivers of conflict – including over one hundred armed groups, weak governance, land disputes, and deep mistrust – are not being addressed.
From a US perspective, framing the Washington Agreements as stable, long-term, and mutually beneficial serves its purpose. It positions the US as a preferred partner in a country where Chinese companies dominate much of the industrial mining and processing industry, and aims to limit China’s further expansion in Congo’s extractive economy.
By linking mineral strategies within a broader peace and security framework, Washington seeks to lock in access to resources deemed critical for technological and military competitiveness while reshaping the political economy of the Great Lakes region. For the DRC, its already weakened sovereignty further eroded, the benefits are less easy to deduce. Instead of strengthening political autonomy or long-term stability, the agreements are deepening Kinshasa’s dependence and narrowing its room of possibilities to pursue an independent economic and foreign policy agenda.
This article was first published by the Review of African Political Economy
Antonia Baumgartner is a Vienna-based freelance journalist and works with Salzburg Global and for the Bruno Kreisky Forum