WASHINGTON — Clashes broke out in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday, hours after a Trump-brokered Congo peace deal to end the country’s chronic conflict was celebrated in Washington, casting doubt on the accord and U.S. efforts to secure essential minerals from the troubled region. Dec. 5, 2025 The fighting between Congo’s army and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels underscores how little has changed on the ground as Trump dangles security guarantees in response to expanded American access to Congolese cobalt and copper.
The two sides, which accuse each other of bombing civilian areas, have resumed artillery, drone and air strikes near the town of Luvungi and on the Kaziba–Katogota–Rurambo axis in South Kivu, according to Reuters reporters in eastern Congo. Congo’s army says it has shot down at least one drone crossing into the country from Rwanda, while M23 officials say dozens of rebels have been killed and that women and children are among the victims of the renewed offensive.
How the Trump-brokered Congo peace deal quickly unravelled on the ground
Trump welcomed Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame to the U.S. Institute of Peace on Thursday for the signing of the accord, which followed a June framework that called for troop withdrawals, the disarmament of rebels, and a way home for refugees. At the ceremony, which Western regional leaders attended and which an Associated Press account called historic, he lauded the agreement as “a new era of harmony and cooperation” and said his administration was “settling a war that’s been going on for decades,” even though the powerful M23 rebels were not signatories.
The financial stakes in the Trump-negotiated Congo peace deal are huge. Congo possesses about three-quarters of the world’s cobalt reserves and supplies most of the global output, while Chinese companies gain control over some of the largest foreign-owned mines and long-term contracts for off-take, according to conflict-tracking research by the Council on Foreign Relations. Separately, alongside the peace push, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation has indicated it might make an equity investment in a new copper and cobalt marketing joint venture between Congo’s state miner Gécamines and Switzerland’s largest cobalt trader, Mercuria, which would hand Americans a potential right of first refusal on key exports, according to another Reuters report on the minerals push.
Long before the Trump-brokered Congo peace deal arrived in Washington, analysts warned that a minerals-first peace path would be fragile. “Congo’s Fragile Truce?” was how a Royal United Services Institute commentary put it in May. Foreign Interference and Conflict Minerals in the DRC,” wrote that the M23 rebellion, regional interference and conflict involving illicit taxation of cobalt, coltan and gold are all so closely linked that it means one cannot simply bring any settlement that does not also address local grievances and governance reforms.
What now for the accord
For now, U.S. officials say their immediate priority is to convey to Kinshasa and Kigali that they need to stick to cease-fire commitments and rein in proxy forces — even as separate discussions with the M23 in Qatar remain underway. But as more than seven million people were already displaced by overlapping conflicts and the expansion of mining, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker, aid agencies warn civilians are yet again paying for failed diplomacy. Whether the Trump-brokered Congo peace deal becomes a basis for durable peace or just another in an endless chain of fleeting accords that serve as shields for foreign mining interests will hinge on whether the guns fall silent soon—and whether Congolese communities begin reaping dividends from the critical minerals rush.
