Trump Brokers Peace Agreement Between Rwanda And Congo At White House

Leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo joined President Donald Trump at the White House to celebrate the United States-brokered peace agreement on Friday.

“Today, the violence and destruction comes to an end and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity, harmony and prosperity, and peace,” Trump said.

Trump described the war as the “biggest war on the planet since World War II,” and called it a “shame.”

Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe and Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, who were present in the Oval Office during the meeting, signed the agreement earlier on Friday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department.

“Now we can look forward to a future where my children will look at this moment as the beginning of a new story, a story of prosperity and of peace,” Vice President JD Vance said during the meeting.

Rubio congratulated both countries for “choosing the harder path, which is peace.”

“America should be very proud that the number one voice for peace in the world today is our president,” Rubio added.

The agreement requires Rwandan troops to withdraw from eastern Congo and launch a joint security mechanism within 30 days and a regional economic integration framework within 90 days.

The agreement between the two neighbors will also work to attract investment to the Congo’s mineral-rich provinces of North and South Kivu, which have tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, and lithium. According to Trump, the United States will get “a lot of the mineral rights” for the resource-rich area of the Congo.

Trump said that his administration would continue working with both countries to ensure all provisions of the agreement are upheld.

“You better do what is in that agreement because if somebody fails to do that, bad things happen,” Trump said.

During the meeting, Trump signed letters to the heads of state of the two nations congratulating them on achieving peace and inviting them to Washington, D.C.

The conflict kicked off when Rwanda sent 7,000 soldiers over its border to Congo in support of the M23 rebels, who seized two large cities in eastern Congo. The conflict is seen as the latest cycle of tension in a decades-old conflict with roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to Reuters.

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Since January, the escalation has reportedly killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Rwanda has denied helping M23, claiming its forces are acting in self-defense against Congo’s military and ethnic Hutu militiamen who have ties to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which claimed the lives of between 500,000 and a million people, according to estimates.