“Your election has ushered in the golden age for America,” wrote a supplicant trying to curry favor with President Donald J. Trump last month. The letter, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, did not come from a sycophantic follower, a would-be political appointee, or someone seeking a pardon. It came from Félix Tshisekedi, the embattled president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is facing down a domestic rebellion supported by neighboring Rwanda.
The rebel group, named M23 after a failed peace deal signed on March 23, 2009, and its Rwandan allies are ethnic Tutsis who claim to be fearful of rival Hutus—an aftershock of Rwanda’s brutal civil war in the 1990s. In the first weeks of 2025, the rebels and their Rwandan allies launched a lightning offensive, routing Congolese, UN, and mercenary troops around the eastern city of Goma, in the heart of Congo’s mineral-rich mining region.
According to UN officials, M23 has been operating Congolese mines in areas under its control and shipping large quantities of extracted material to Rwanda. Neighboring Uganda has allegedly also taken advantage of the crisis to make inroads. China is a heavy investor in both neighboring countries and in Congo’s mining industry, while Russia, China’s “unlimited partner,” has made diplomatic overtures to broker a peace deal that would enhance Moscow’s growing role in African politics. On the ground, a humanitarian catastrophe has ensued, with an estimated 700,000 persons displaced and reports of mass violence and dire conditions.
Tshisekedi’s motivations in writing Trump, who received the letter via a private intermediary who sent it to his personal office, were immediately clear. “Our partnership,” the Congolese president wrote, “would provide the U.S. with a strategic advantage by securing critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, copper, and tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Those minerals, along with other minerals Congo possesses, are vital in the production of electronics, communications, AI technology, and other strategically important goods. Congo is the world’s leading producer of cobalt and one of the largest producers of copper.
In return, the Congolese president asked Trump for a “formal security pact” to defeat his enemies, who in addition to their political differences are after his mines. The desired military commitments appear to have been unspecified, but Tshisekedi suggested to Fox News host Bret Baier this week that the U.S. could also use “either [diplomatic] pressure or sanctions” to help solve his problem. Since Trump returned to office in January, the U.S. has already sanctioned at least one Rwandan official and an M23 leader. Tshisekedi is engaging in talks with the rebels on his own.
More
LUIS TATO/AFP/Getty Images
Tshisekedi’s letter followed multiple missives transmitted by a registered foreign agent working for Congo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the heads of the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, and others in Washington potentially able to influence U.S. policy. Tshisekedi has also reportedly been in talks with Erik Prince, a Trump ally who founded the military contractor previously known as Blackwater, which could potentially patrol the disputed region and collect local revenues for the Congolese government.
State Department sources have revealed that the Trump administration is seriously considering Tshisekedi’s offer. The intermediary who delivered the Congolese president’s letter to Trump was reportedly invited to the White House to deliver a high-level briefing.
It is inconceivable, however, that Tshisekedi would ever have made his offer without Trump’s démarche demanding hundreds of billions of dollars in minerals and other natural resources from Ukraine in exchange for past military aid. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says he remains willing to sign that deal despite his ill-fated White House meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance on February 28. Trump’s motivation for acquiring Greenland—either directly from Denmark or unilaterally in the likely event that the island achieves national independence—is similarly rooted in the politics of minerals, which Trump adviser Elon Musk has called “the new oil.”
While Trump has resisted offering Kyiv any military guarantees, he has suggested he would support such a guarantee from the U.S.’ European allies and could continue other forms of support like intelligence sharing. His administration has further suggested that an American stake in Ukraine’s natural wealth would offer an “economic security guarantee.” The U.S. would be far more motivated to defend lucrative tangible assets, like rare mineral deposits, than mere idealism or nebulous concepts like “European security.”
In Congo, unlike Ukraine, a potential American security commitment would carry no risk of direct military confrontation with a major power. The M23 fighters and Rwandan forces operating in the country’s eastern provinces each number only a few thousand soldiers and could easily be bested by government forces with U.S. military assistance. The minerals Tshisekedi offered in his letter would then presumably be conceded to the United States rather than to China. If Trump and Tshisekedi can iron out a deal, however, other leaders facing problems in the developing world will certainly notice—and may send Washington love letters of their own.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
