By Abayomi Azikiwe
Reports have surfaced during the early months of 2025 regarding a possible deal between the current government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under President Felix Tshisekedi and the United States administration of President Donald Trump to exchange critical minerals for military assistance in the eastern region of the vast central African state.
M23 rebels who are backed by the neighboring Rwandan government have taken control of the two largest cities in North and South Kivu.
The fighting has prompted widespread dislocation, injuries, deaths and uncertainty among over 15 million people living in these two provinces. The Congolese national army battalions have failed to secure these important areas of the country while some of their soldiers have joined the M23 rebels in response to the collapse of their own military forces.
Military court martials have been held to prosecute those soldiers who abandoned their positions during the advances of the M23 insurgents. Efforts to mediate a peaceful resolution of the conflict have not been successful in its latest phase where the Republic of Angola President Joao Lourenco attempted to bring about an agreement between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his DRC counterpart Tshisekedi.
The problems in the eastern DRC can be traced back at least to the internal struggle which overthrew the previous leader Mobuto Sese Seko who had ruled the former Belgian Congo since a series of coups which occurred between 1960 and 1965. The first democratic elections in the country brought Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to power in late June 1960. Nonetheless, the Pan-Africanist politics of Lumumba made him a target for the outgoing Belgian colonialists and their allies in the United States.
Lumumba was removed in a coup and after he fled the capital of Leopoldville was captured in later months where he was tortured and executed in the breakaway southern province of Katanga. It has been documented that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Belgian military were behind the charge to assassinate Lumumba and consequently derail the independence process in Congo.
Laurent Kabila, who was a veteran follower of Lumumba, led the Congolese Alliance of Democratic Forces for Liberation (AFDL) to victory in May 1997 ending the rule of neo-colonialist puppet Mobuto. Yet, the same Rwandan and Ugandan military forces that assisted in the removal of Mobuto then attempted on behalf of the U.S. to overthrow Kabila and take over the entire country beginning in August 1998. These efforts failed and the western-backed forces of Rwanda, Uganda and the anti-Kabila Congolese rebels were forced into reaching a peace agreement by 2003 after five years of war which drew in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Burundi on the side of the administration of Kabila. The DRC would eventually join the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which is still involved in seeking to stabilize the country.
Minerals in Exchange for Imperialist Security
The latest scheme to foster economic growth and an end to the threats posed by M23 and other rebel groups operating in the eastern DRC has attracted some media attention in the West. DRC President Tshisekedi has floated a proposal to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to supply important minerals while the imperialist state would provide security against the rebels.
A recent article published by the London-based Financial Times says of the proposal that:
“A letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on behalf of Congolese Senator Pierre Kanda Kalambayi late last month proposed that DR Congo could give U.S. companies extraction rights for mining projects and collaborate on developing a strategic stockpile of minerals. In exchange, the letter requests American support for training and equipping Congolese armed forces. While the terms of a deal have yet to be worked out, the interest shown by the U.S. underscores the Trump administration’s focus on acquiring access to resources around the world.”
This letter from the DRC government is clearly related to the efforts on the part of the Trump administration to secure critical minerals in other geopolitical regions of the world. The White House has advanced the notions of taking over full control of Canada and Greenland saying the conquering of these states are important to the national security of the U.S. The purported efforts aimed at a ceasefire and a lasting peace in Ukraine are also related to the U.S. objective to secure rare metals and other strategic resources in this Eastern European state.
Many voters were persuaded into believing during the 2024 national elections in the U.S. that a second Trump administration would end overseas adventures and focus attention on lowering prices and creating employment opportunities. Yet, since taking office on January 20, not only has the stock market been marked by volatility and decline, the threat of continuing imperialist war remains a central focus of the White House.
Trump’s foreign policy imperatives have resulted in the escalation of military spending by the British government and within the EU member-states. Threats emanating from the State Department and the Pentagon aimed at intimidating European states will undoubtedly create more tensions and hostility on a global scale.
Within the first two months of the Trump administration, the bombing of the Palestinians in Gaza has resumed. The Pentagon is periodically engaging in aerial strikes against the people of Yemen killing civilians and destroying important infrastructure in a country which is ranked as the most impoverished in the West Asia region.
Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, has been subjected to renewed bombing operations by the Pentagon under the guise of fighting ISIS-affiliated groupings inside the country. The breakaway Somaliland region in the northeast with its port at Berbera on the Red Sea has been a focus of discussion and debate by the Trump administration where some elements within the leadership of the secessionist area are lobbying the White House for recognition.
The internationally recognized Somalian administration in Mogadishu under the leadership of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has responded to the reported talks on U.S. recognition of Somaliland by initiating its own appeal to the State Department aimed at squashing the efforts of the breakaway region. For decades, successive U.S. administrations have intervened militarily and politically in the internal affairs of the Somalian people.
These possible scenarios related to further U.S. exploitative and militarist efforts in Africa should serve as a warning to the AU and the people of the continent. At the most recent AU Summit in Ethiopia, the continental body called for the payment of reparations for the ongoing legacy of enslavement and colonialism. The demand for adequate compensation for the centuries of exploitation and national oppression cannot be achieved if the leading imperialist state is being invited to engage in nefarious plots to further enrich and empower transnational corporations and international finance capital.
Trump must be viewed as an agent of imperialism whose approach to global hegemony will prove detrimental to the peoples of Africa and the world. The history of U.S. involvement in Africa must serve as a lesson for dealing with the contemporary manifestations of imperialism.
Unity Based on Anti-Imperialism is the Only Solution to Underdevelopment
The leaders in the DRC and Somalia must recognize that any deal agreed to with the Trump White House will only deepen the internal conflicts inside their own states. Inviting the Pentagon to station troops in the Eastern DRC and to enhance their presence in Somalia will only intensify anti-U.S. sentiment in their respective states.
A report on the prospects for the placement of large numbers of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) troops in eastern DRC points out some of the potential risks for imperialism, noting:
“As a strategy for securing minerals, a U.S.-DRC minerals-for-security deal would come with significant risks. The most obvious and consequential would be U.S. forces being drawn into a complex, multiparty civil war, as happened following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both of those conflicts became quagmires, with the U.S. ultimately withdrawing on less than ideal terms after significant U.S. blood and treasure had been shed and spent.”
This assessment only deals with the risks for U.S. imperialism and fails to take into consideration the impact of continuing exploitation of African strategic resources on the 111 million people living in the DRC. A solution to the lack of growth and development in the DRC and other African states calls for continental unity based upon an anti-imperialist program.
Trump is advancing imperialist-militarism as his predecessors from both the Republican and Democratic parties have done for more than a century. These overtures for resource deals in exchange for security will not solve the problems plaguing the continent. Only the people of Africa through their organization and mobilization can defeat the imperialist destabilization of the continent.
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