RESOURCE CURSE: DRC DANGLES MINERALS DEAL BEFORE TRUMP

Seeing Donald Trump try and get his hands on Ukrainian minerals as payment for US support appears to have inspired the Congolese president. Félix Tshisekedi has reportedly offered Washington access to resources that are crucial to the US tech sector - in return for a security pact. But how can Kinshasa trust the US to protect Congo when Washington is also propping up the very forces that are plundering it?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has an abundance of cobalt, lithium, copper and tantalum - used in modern technologies such as smartphones and electric vehicles. But it’s also deliberately kept unstable. It’s bogged down in a costly war in the east of the country against the M23 militia, a proxy for neighbouring Rwanda, which is plundering the region’s mines and flooding supply chains with conflict minerals.

That state of affairs has suited Western firms (such as Apple, Dell, Google, Microsoft and Tesla ) quite well. Though they pretend to condemn conflict minerals, they quietly profit from the chaos as an unstable Congo keeps prices down.

The toll on the Congolese has been devastating. More than 8,500 people were killed between January and late February 2025, according to DRC’s authorities. More than 7 million live in refugee camps.

There’s no doubt Kinshasa needs help fending off the aggressor in the east. But the prospect of DRC surrendering its minerals to a Western superpower that is also propping up the very forces that are plundering it has dismayed many - including the sister in this video (@giathehousegoddess). As a pan-Africanist, she fears the Congo will surrender its sovereignty to neocolonial control instead of seeking alliances with fellow African nations. She also notes that this is another prime example of Africa’s resource ‘curse’ not being a curse at all, but an imperialist ploy whereby the richest nations in resources remain the poorest in development. Congo should be the most prosperous nation on the planet but instead is one of the poorest and most suffering.

Video credit: @giathehousegoddess (IG)

Sources

https://www.mining.com/congo-offers-us-europe-minerals-in-exchange-for-peace/ 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/17/amid-conflict-why-does-the-drc-want-a-minerals-deal-with-trump 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/12/phone-misery-children-congo-cobalt-mines-drc 

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/09/conflict-minerals-from-the-congo-is-your-cellphone-made-with-them.html 

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/over-8-500-people-killed-since-january-in-fighting-in-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo/3495683