Congo and Rwanda sign pathway to peace in U.S.-brokered agreement
FILE PHOTO: Members of the M23 rebel group mount their vehicles after the opening ceremony of Caisse Generale d'epargne du Congo (CADECO) which will serve as the bank for the city of Goma where all banks have closed since the city was taken by the M23 rebels, in Goma, North Kivu province in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, April 7, 2025. REUTERS/Arlette Bashizi/File Photo
By Sonia Rolley and Jessica Donati
Congo and Rwanda vowed to come up with a draft peace deal by May 2 and refrain from providing military support to armed groups, according to an agreement signed in Washington on Friday as part of diplomatic efforts to end violence in eastern Congo.
The agreement, reached amid an unprecedented advance by Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in Congo, is expected to bring significant U.S. public and private investment to the region, which is rich in minerals including tantalum and gold, the final text said.
It raises hopes that the latest cycle of violence in a decades-long conflict rooted in the Rwandan genocide might ease. However, previous ceasefire calls have not produced a sustained break in the fighting.
Both parties also agreed to explore a joint security coordination mechanism to crack down on armed groups and criminal organizations.
The two countries' foreign ministers signed at a ceremony with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also signed as a witness.
"To our countrymen and women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially in the east, we know you are watching this moment," said Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner.
"You have every reason to expect more than promises," she added.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said it opened the door to a definitive peace agreement.
"We are discussing how to build new regional economic value chains that link our countries, including with American private sector investment," he said.
Building on the investment potential outlined in the agreement, Washington is in talks to invest billions of dollars in minerals in Congo, which has vast deposits of not only tantalum and gold but also copper, cobalt and lithium, used in mobile phones and electric cars. Separately, Rwanda said this week it was also speaking to Washington about a possible minerals deal.
"A durable peace in the Great Lakes region will open the door for greater U.S. and broader Western investment, which will bring about economic opportunities and prosperity," Rubio said at the ceremony.
"Our firms are good corporate citizens, American firms, and they'll bring good governance and ensure responsible, reliable supply chains for things like critical minerals."
The agreement is a "declaration of principles", which a diplomatic source described as "very broad objectives to work towards".
Both sides will finalise the specifics in a few months and then sign the agreement, the source said.
Congo has seen a surge in violence after M23 launched a major offensive in January that led to the capture of the two largest cities in the east.
The United Nations and Western governments say Rwanda has provided arms and troops to M23. Rwanda denies backing M23 and says its military has acted in self-defence against Congo's army and a militia founded by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Both Qatar and the U.S. have shown an interest in mediating a resolution.
Qatar in March brokered a surprise sit-down between Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame during which the two leaders called for a ceasefire.
Qatar has also hosted talks between Congo and M23, and this week the two sides issued a statement vowing to work towards peace.
The Qatari foreign affairs ministry said the agreement signed in Washington was a "positive and important step toward fostering peace and stability".
The Trump administration has taken a special interest in Congo since a Congolese senator contacted U.S. officials to pitch a minerals-for-security deal this year.
Washington wants greater access to minerals that are currently exploited predominantly by China and its mining companies.
The State Department has said the U.S. is interested in a deal and expects any agreement to involve private sector partners.
Already positioned to support a partnership is prominent Trump backer Erik Prince, who agreed earlier this year to help Congo secure and tax its vast mineral wealth.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Mainichi
3 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Top US universities raced to become global campuses. Under Trump, it's becoming a liability
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three decades ago, foreign students at Harvard University accounted for just 11% of the total student body. Today, they account for 26%. Like other prestigious U.S. universities, Harvard for years has been cashing in on its global cache to recruit the world's best students. Now, the booming international enrollment has left colleges vulnerable to a new line of attack from President Donald Trump. The president has begun to use his control over the nation's borders as leverage in his fight to reshape American higher education. Trump's latest salvo against Harvard uses a broad federal law to bar foreign students from entering the country to attend the campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His proclamation applies only to Harvard, and a federal judge late Thursday temporarily blocked it. But Trump's order poses a threat to other universities his administration has targeted as hotbeds of liberalism in need of reform. It's rattling campuses under federal scrutiny, including Columbia University, where foreign students make up 40% of the campus. As the Trump administration stepped up reviews of new student visas last week, a group of Columbia faculty and alumni raised concerns over Trump's gatekeeping powers. "Columbia's exposure to this 'stroke of pen' risk is uniquely high," the Stand Columbia Society wrote in a newsletter. Ivy League schools draw heavily on international students People from other countries made up about 6% of all college students in the U.S. in 2023, but they accounted for 27% of the eight schools in the Ivy League, according to an Associated Press analysis of Education Department data. Columbia's 40% was the largest concentration, followed by Harvard and Cornell at about 25%. Brown University had the smallest share at 20%. Other highly selective private universities have seen similar trends, including at Northeastern University and New York University, which each saw foreign enrollment double between 2013 and 2023. Growth at public universities has been more muted. Even at the 50 most selective public schools, foreign students account for about 11% of the student body. As the middle class has grown in other countries, more families have been able to afford test prep and admissions guidance to compete for spots in the Ivy League, said Rajika Bhandari, who leads a firm of higher education consultants. "The Ivy League brand is very strong overseas, especially in countries like India and China, where families are extremely brand-aware of top institutions in the U.S. and other competing countries," Bhandari said in an email. Over the last two decades, she said, U.S. universities have increasingly recognized the benefits of international exchange, seeing it as a crucial revenue source that subsidizes U.S. students and keeps enrollments up in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. America's universities have been widening their doors to foreign students for decades, but the numbers shot upward starting around 2008, as Chinese students came to U.S. universities in rising numbers. It was part of a "gold rush" in higher education, said William Brustein, who orchestrated the international expansion of several universities. "Whether you were private or you were public, you had to be out in front in terms of being able to claim you were the most global university," said Brustein, who led efforts at Ohio State University and West Virginia University. The race was driven in part by economics, he said. Foreign students typically aren't eligible for financial aid and, at some schools, they pay much higher tuition than their American counterparts. Colleges also were eyeing global rankings that gave schools a boost if they recruited larger numbers of foreign students and scholars, he said. Some wealthier universities -- including Harvard -- offer financial aid to foreign students. But students who get into those top-tier U.S. universities often have the means to pay higher tuition rates, Brustein said. That provides further incentive to enroll more foreign students, he said, saving more scholarship money for American students. Still, international enrollment didn't expand equally across all types of colleges. Public universities often face pressure from state lawmakers to limit foreign enrollment and keep more seats open for state residents. Private universities don't face that pressure, and many aggressively recruited foreign students as their enrollment of U.S. students stayed flat. The college-going rate among American students has changed little for decades, and some have been turned off on college by rising costs and student debt loads. Supporters say foreign students benefit colleges -- and the wider US economy Proponents of international exchange say foreign students pour billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, and many go on to support the nation's tech industry and other fields in need of skilled workers. Most international students study STEM fields. In the Ivy League, most international growth has been at the graduate level, while undergraduate numbers have seen more modest increases. Foreign graduate students make up more than half the students at Harvard's government and design schools, along with five of Columbia's schools. Harvard's undergraduate foreign population increased by about 100 students from 2013 to 2023, while graduate numbers increased by nearly 2,000. Part of that growth can be explained by increasing global competition at the graduate level, said William Kirby, a historian at Harvard who has written about the evolution of higher education. "If you don't recruit the very best students internationally in your most important graduate programs, particularly in science and engineering, then you will not be competitive," Kirby said. The Ivy League has been able to outpace other schools in large part because of its reputation, Brustein said. He recalls trips to China and India, where he spoke with families that could recite where each Ivy League school sat in world rankings. "That was the golden calf for these families. They really thought, 'If we could just get into these schools, the rest of our lives would be on easy street,'" he said. Last week, Trump said he thought Harvard should cap its foreign students to about 15%. "We have people who want to go to Harvard and other schools, they can't get in because we have foreign students there," Trump said at a news conference. The university called Trump's latest action banning entry into the country to attend Harvard "yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard's First Amendment rights." In a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's previous attempt to block international students at Harvard, the university said its foreign student population was the result of "a painstaking, decades-long project" to attract the most qualified international students. Losing access to student visas would immediately harm the school's mission and reputation, it said. "In our interconnected global economy," the school said, "a university that cannot welcome students from all corners of the world is at a competitive disadvantage."
The Mainichi
6 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Trump administration still reviewing Nippon-US Steel deal
WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday continued to review Nippon Steel Corp.'s proposals to acquire United States Steel Corp., taking the decision past the expected deadline. It was earlier thought that Trump had until Thursday to decide whether to formally approve Nippon Steel's buyout plan. But Trump could now make a final decision by June 18, given that U.S. authorities in January extended to that date a deadline for the Japanese and U.S. steelmakers to abandon the plan. The original 30-day deadline was extended as the two producers took legal action against former U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to block the sale of the struggling but iconic American producer to the Japanese company. Biden had cited national security concerns for his decision. Trump, who also opposed the sale during the 2024 presidential race, ordered in April the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to conduct another review of Nippon Steel's proposed acquisition. With the review now complete and its findings passed to the president, Trump apparently had until June 5 to determine his position under the 15-day presidential review period. Nippon Steel had also said this was case. But U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested Thursday that talks are ongoing. Nippon Steel and the Trump administration on the same day also requested that a U.S. appeals court extend a pause in their lawsuit to nullify Biden's decision for eight days.
The Mainichi
8 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Trump says he welcomes Chinese students, but wants them checked
WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he welcomes Chinese and other foreign students to study in the United States, but he wants them to be screened more carefully. "Chinese students are coming. No problem. No problem. It's our honor to have them," Trump said at the White House ahead of a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. "We want to have foreign students, but we want them to be checked." Trump made the comments in response to a question from the press as to whether he discussed anything regarding Chinese students in his phone call in the morning with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The Trump administration has been tightening the screening of international students, claiming some of them could threaten national security. On Wednesday, he signed a proclamation to suspend student visas for foreign nationals seeking to study at Harvard University. Identifying China by its formal name, the proclamation warned that "our adversaries, including the People's Republic of China, try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa program for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States." The White House also noted that Xi's daughter attended Harvard as an undergraduate in the early 2010s. In a related development, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week the United States will "aggressively" revoke the visas of Chinese students, specifically those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or those studying in sensitive fields. Rubio also said the United States will revise visa criteria to step up scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong. In the 2023-2024 school year, China was the country of origin for the second-highest number of foreign students in the United States, following India, which became the leader for the first time since 2009, according to data from Open Doors, a program sponsored by the State Department. There were 277,398 Chinese students in the United States in the year, making up a quarter of the total number of international students.
