A Washington Photo‑Op That’s Also a Minerals Deal
On December 4, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Washington for the signing of what the White House has framed as the “Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity”—an agreement pitched as a step toward ending the war in eastern Congo. At the same time, the accord sits inside a broader U.S.-led package that links security, investment, and access to critical minerals, with U.S. officials and partners developing a “regional economic integration” framework intended to help channel Western capital into a region rich in tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, lithium, and other strategic commodities.
The tight coupling of peace diplomacy and minerals policy has been spelled out with unusual directness in mainstream reporting. AP described the December signing as aimed not only at ending conflict but also at “opening access” to Congo’s critical minerals for the U.S. government and American firms—explicitly framed in the context of competing with China’s dominance in rare earths and related processing. Reuters, previewing the signing, reported that the Trump administration has repeatedly used economic “incentives” as part of the peace package, while also capturing how Kigali and Kinshasa remain far apart on core security claims—Rwanda denying backing the M23 rebels, and Congo insisting on troop withdrawal and an end to support.
Even the venue has been political theater. Reuters reported that Trump’s name was added to signage at the U.S. Institute of Peace ahead of the signing, after an earlier administration effort to take control of the congressionally funded nonprofit became controversial. For readers in the U.S. and Europe, the optics matter because they reveal the administration’s preferred storyline: a “deal” that ends a war and unlocks mineral supply security. The harder question—and the one that connects directly to the DRC’s aggressive posture toward companies and certification bodies—is whether the agreement can actually change the incentives that have made minerals, smuggling, and armed coercion mutually reinforcing in the Great Lakes region.
The Corridor at the Center: Why “DRC→Rwanda” Became the Core Narrative
For years, “conflict minerals” was largely a compliance term—an ESG problem to be managed through due diligence frameworks, audits, and carefully worded corporate reports. Since 2023, the DRC has pushed a more geopolitical interpretation: the defining risk is not only that minerals leave conflict zones, but that they leave through a particular channel—Congo’s east into Rwanda—where they can be “laundered” into legitimate export streams and then re-enter global supply chains with the appearance of compliance.
This emphasis on a corridor is grounded in how violence and resource governance operate on the ground. Eastern Congo contains high-value deposits associated with electronics and battery supply chains; armed groups can extract rents not necessarily by digging ore themselves, but by controlling access roads, markets, “taxation,” and cross-border flows. The DRC’s argument is that the corridor is the mechanism that converts local coercion into global revenue. The U.S. government itself signaled concern along these lines in July 2024, issuing a State Department “Statement of Concern” about certain minerals supply chains from Rwanda and eastern DRC that it said contribute to the ongoing conflict.
International reporting has repeatedly described how conflict dynamics and mineral flows interact. Reuters has cited U.N. experts describing large-scale fraudulent exports of coltan from rebel-held areas into Rwanda, framed as “contamination” of the Great Lakes minerals supply chain. More recently, Reuters reported on a confidential U.N. report that named a Rwandan company alleged to have purchased coltan smuggled from rebel-held territory—an escalation in specificity that matters because it implies a tighter coupling between identifiable commercial actors and the armed-economy ecosystem.
The DRC’s political wager is straightforward: if it can convince Western regulators, courts, and consumers that the route itself is a laundering architecture, then the reputational and legal risk shifts from being “a distant upstream problem” to something that can trigger enforcement and litigation in the heart of consumer markets.
M23, Smuggling, and the Economics of Armed Control
A corridor story is only persuasive if it can be tied to clear drivers of violence. The most potent driver in the 2024–2025 escalation has been the Rwanda‑backed M23, described by AP as the strongest among the armed groups battling in eastern Congo, and reported as having seized major urban centers during this year’s fighting. Reuters has reported on clashes and mutual accusations of ceasefire violations even in the days immediately preceding the Washington signing, underscoring how fragile any diplomatic outcome remains when battlefield realities keep evolving.
For U.S. and European audiences, it is crucial to see how mineral value maps onto coercive power. When armed groups can tax production and trade, they create a war-finance mechanism that does not require ideological legitimacy—only territorial control and market access. That market access, in turn, often depends on cross-border routes and document systems that can convert mineral flows into “exports” that appear lawful. The DRC’s accusation against downstream companies is therefore not simply “you bought the wrong mineral,” but “the global system you rely on to claim responsible sourcing can be gamed when armed actors control choke points.”
This is also why Rwanda’s foreign minister, in comments reported by Reuters, frames Kigali’s military posture as “defensive” and links withdrawal to the neutralization of the FDLR, a group connected to the legacy of the 1994 genocide. Security narratives and mineral narratives are competing explanations for the same set of facts: one side insists the problem is cross-border armed interference and resource extraction; the other insists existential security threats require forward measures. The Washington Accords arrive into this contested interpretive space, not above it.
Europe’s Critical Raw Materials Diplomacy Meets Its Human Rights Commitments
No actor illustrates the collision between minerals strategy and human rights more sharply than the European Union. In February 2024, the European Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda on “Sustainable Raw Materials Value Chains,” explicitly tying cooperation to due diligence, traceability, and fighting illegal trafficking, while also presenting Rwanda as a key player in tantalum extraction and a potential hub for value addition.
That partnership soon became a lightning rod. In February 2025, the European Parliament urged the Commission and Council to immediately suspend the EU‑Rwanda MoU until Rwanda ceased interference in the DRC, including exporting minerals mined from M23‑controlled areas—language that effectively mirrors the DRC’s corridor narrative. Human Rights Watch amplified this critique, arguing that EU inaction amid Rwanda-backed abuses should force a rethink of Europe’s Rwanda relationship and expressly referencing the controversial MoU.
From a European reader’s perspective, the underlying dilemma is structural. Europe wants resilient, diversified supply chains for the green transition, and it has invested political capital in partnerships framed as “sustainable value chains.” At the same time, Europe’s legitimacy in this space depends on consistent application of rules-based standards and credible enforcement. When prominent EU institutions publicly call for suspending an MoU over concerns about conflict-linked exports, the dispute stops being a niche mining story and becomes a test of EU normative power.
The Compliance Architecture Under Stress: ITSCI, RMI, and the Fight Over “Proof”
The DRC’s campaign has not only targeted companies; it has also targeted the “assurance infrastructure” that makes corporate claims portable—traceability schemes, audit programs, and industry standards that together generate what can look like proof of responsible sourcing.
An important fault line is the dispute around ITSCI, a 3T (tin, tantalum, tungsten) traceability and due diligence program used by upstream actors in the Great Lakes region. The Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) has stated that it will not recognize ITSCI at this time and cited concerns about whether ITSCI met recognition terms and how risk management responded to conflict escalation affecting minerals trade in the DRC and Rwanda. ITSCI, for its part, has publicly responded to critiques, arguing that commentary can become overly generalized and that local context varies, and it has also disputed or contextualized NGO allegations—illustrating how “auditability” and “truth” diverge during active conflict.
For U.S. and European readers used to regulatory logics, this matters because supply-chain rules often treat the existence of a recognized scheme as a proxy for lowered risk. When a major industry umbrella organization withdraws recognition, the proxy breaks. At that point, downstream corporate statements about “conflict-free” sourcing can be reinterpreted not as responsible disclosure but as potentially misleading—especially if they rely on mechanisms whose validity is publicly disputed.
The DRC’s strategy leverages this gap: it shifts the debate away from whether any individual company knew the precise origin of a batch of ore (often hard to prove) and toward whether it was reasonable to market products as responsibly sourced while relying on assurance systems facing credible challenges.
The U.S. Reframe: From “Conflict Minerals” to “Minerals for Security,” with China in the Background
Washington’s renewed engagement in the DRC‑Rwanda conflict is happening in a policy environment shaped by strategic competition. AP’s coverage of the December 4 signing explicitly frames U.S. interest in Congolese minerals as part of an effort to “circumvent China” in acquiring rare earth minerals, and it notes China’s dominance in mining and processing. That framing is not an editorial aside; it clarifies why a peace process is being built with a parallel economic integration track that explicitly invites Western investment into mineral, energy, and tourism opportunities.
At the same time, Reuters reporting has repeatedly portrayed the peace push as accompanied by mineral deals and conditions around troop withdrawal and support to armed groups—suggesting that security commitments and investment incentives are being negotiated as a package. This is precisely where the DRC’s corporate accountability campaign intersects with grand strategy. If Western governments are willing to treat mineral access as a driver of diplomatic leverage, then the DRC has an incentive to raise the reputational and legal costs of any model that appears to reward corridor laundering or normalize conflict-linked exports.
How the DRC Turned Allegations into Leverage: “Notification,” Litigation, and Targeting Market‑Facing Claims
From 2024 onward, the DRC’s approach toward global firms has looked less like a single lawsuit and more like a sequenced pressure campaign built around information demands, reputational escalation, and the cultivation of legal hooks in Europe and the United States.
In April and May 2024, Reuters reported that lawyers representing the DRC pressed Apple for information about a supply chain that Congo argued might be tainted by conflict minerals—and that Congo’s lawyers wrote to Apple’s French subsidiary demanding answers, while investigating allegations of minerals being smuggled out through Rwanda and other neighboring countries. AP reported similarly that Congo’s government sought answers about whether tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold in Apple’s supply chain could be “blood minerals” connected to eastern Congo and routed via Rwanda.
The pressure escalated in December 2024, when Reuters reported that the DRC filed criminal complaints against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium, alleging use of conflict minerals; Reuters later reported that Belgium appointed an investigating magistrate, while French prosecutors ultimately closed the case for lack of sufficient grounds. Regardless of outcome, those proceedings illustrate the DRC’s operating theory: even if proving criminal culpability is difficult, the process itself can shift corporate behavior, force disclosures, and weaken the credibility of broad marketing claims about “responsible sourcing.”
That logic also appears in the U.S. litigation space. Reuters reported in late November 2025 that a U.S. group sued Apple over Congo conflict minerals; Apple responded by emphasizing its supplier standards and its move toward recycled materials, including a claim that 99% of cobalt in Apple-designed batteries comes from recycled sources, and noting that it instructed suppliers to stop sourcing from Congo and Rwanda as conflict escalated. Even there, the contest is not only about upstream harm; it is about what companies tell consumers and investors, and what counts as a defensible basis for those statements.
Regulation as a Second Front: Why the DRC’s Story Resonates in Europe
Europe is an especially fertile arena for the DRC’s corridor narrative because the EU already has a legal architecture that treats conflict-linked minerals as a governance problem rather than a purely voluntary CSR issue.
The EU Conflict Minerals Regulation requires EU importers of tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold to conduct supply-chain due diligence, and the European Commission states that the requirements have applied since January 1, 2021. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1760) pushes further, embedding human rights and environmental due diligence in corporate obligations across “chains of activities.”
In that setting, the DRC’s claim that the corridor enables “laundering” functions as a red flag not only for companies, but also for regulators and lawmakers who need to justify strategic partnerships on “sustainable” raw materials. The European Parliament’s call to suspend the Rwanda MoU explicitly linked the politics of territorial control in eastern Congo to the integrity of mineral exports, effectively importing the DRC’s argument into EU institutional language.
The OECD Baseline—and Why “Following the Framework” Is Not the Same as “Being Clean”
In both U.S. and European debates, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict‑Affected and High‑Risk Areas remains the foundational reference point, designed to promote transparent supply chains and to guide risk-based due diligence across minerals and metals supply chains.
The uncomfortable reality is that the OECD framework assumes that companies can identify, assess, and mitigate risks in a way that produces progressively better outcomes. But corridor laundering is, by definition, a strategy that exploits weak points in identification and verification—especially when conflict escalations rapidly reshape control of territory, the reliability of audits, and the integrity of local administrative systems. That is why disputes about “recognition” of traceability schemes become pivotal: they determine whether the market treats a claim as credible.
The DRC’s approach essentially weaponizes this insight. Instead of arguing only about atrocities—an argument that can be morally compelling but legally complex—it pressures the market’s epistemology: what do we accept as knowledge about origin, and who is entitled to sell reassurance?
What the Washington Accords Can—and Can’t—Solve
The Washington Accords, as currently framed in reporting, try to fuse three things: a security settlement, an investment narrative, and a strategic supply chain objective. AP emphasizes that even as the accord is celebrated in Washington, fighting has continued in eastern Congo and analysts do not expect quick peace, noting that a separate track exists involving Congo and M23. Reuters likewise reports fresh clashes and ongoing accusations, highlighting that trust remains thin.
From a policy standpoint, the accord’s most consequential question is whether it can change the incentive structure around the corridor. If armed actors and their enablers can still profit from smuggling, a peace signature and an investment roadmap may coexist with continued laundering, leaving Western buyers exposed to the same reputational and legal risks—perhaps amplified by the visibility of U.S. involvement.
This is where the DRC’s corporate/legal campaign and U.S. peace diplomacy intersect in a way Western readers will recognize from other contexts: sanctions, due diligence, and litigation are often used not because they solve conflict directly, but because they change the cost of doing business under contested conditions. The DRC is trying to raise the price of ambiguity—and to ensure that “critical minerals access” is conditioned on credible disentanglement from coercion, not merely on paper compliance.
Conclusion: The Real Contest Is Over Legitimacy, Not Just Minerals
To U.S. and European audiences, it can be tempting to treat the DRC’s accusations—against companies, traders, or traceability schemes—as another installment in a familiar “corporate accountability” genre. That lens misses the deeper transformation. Since 2023, the DRC has increasingly used the language of conflict minerals and human rights as an instrument of statecraft, aiming to delegitimize a specific cross‑border corridor and the governance mechanisms that allow it to function.
The Washington Accords, signed under the banner of peace and prosperity, underscore how central minerals have become to high politics: diplomacy is now being conducted with supply chains in mind, openly connected to competition with China and to Western investment strategies. In that environment, the DRC’s legal and narrative offensive is not peripheral; it is an attempt to shape the terms on which the West can pursue mineral security without inheriting the moral and legal liabilities of a conflict economy.
If the corridor narrative continues to gain traction—in EU institutions, in U.S. government statements, and in the evidentiary record collected by journalists and U.N. experts—then “responsible sourcing” will be less about producing the right audit documents and more about demonstrating that a chain of custody can withstand the pressures of war. That shift would not only redefine corporate risk; it would also redefine how Washington and Brussels structure minerals partnerships in a world where geopolitics and compliance have become inseparable.