John Matisonn: Trump and Ramaphosa find common ground in Africa’s battle for peace - and minerals

Key topics:US leads DRC peace talks after Rwanda objects to South African mediation.Trump aims to boost US mining investment to counter China in DRC region.Complex regional conflicts hinder lasting peace; domestic DRC issues key..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..By John Matisonn.Rwanda’s objection to South Africa or SADC mediating the eastern DRC peace process led President Donald Trump’s Senior Advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, to become the key peace negotiator for the region.Boulos, now the most significant official on US Africa policy as well as Trump’s Senior Advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs, helped broker a draft agreement in Qatar after an earlier signing ceremony in Washington. Boulos, an orthodox Christian who is the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter Tiffany, headed the president’s effort to win Arab-American votes in the crucial state of Michigan in last year’s election. Boulos moved from Lebanon to Texas as a teenager, and earned degrees in business and law. After graduating, he moved to Nigeria and became CEO of a trucking and heavy machinery company. Since Trump won back the presidency, he worked with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the middle east, on the middle east ceasefire, which applied to both Gaza and Lebanon. In his new role he has travelled to the DRC, Rwanda Kenya and Uganda, and met Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.The Eastern DRC peace process was one area where Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa were on the same page in their otherwise contentious oval office meeting. “This is a clear example of what responsible regional leadership looks like,” Trump acknowledged, praising South Africa’s role. Ramaphosa, in turn, thanked the US for “being firm but fair” and for “backing African-led solutions”.Trump is following a similar formula to the one he applied in Ukraine, where he agreed to US investment in critical minerals as a first step in that peace process. Currently China is the most important investor in mining in the area. As a result, the eastern DRC offers Trump an opportunity to advance two of his key foreign policy goals – to expand US economic influence, especially in critical minerals, and to compete more forcefully with China. As in Ukraine, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi invited the US to invest in critical minerals in the resource rich area as an anchor to help quell the violence..Read more:.Kagame denies Rwanda’s role in DRC despite UN evidence.In a podcast Daily Maverick interview this week International Cooperation director-general Zane Dangor confirmed there has been extensive behind the scenes work with the US on the issue, and admitted that a key problem was that Rwanda has been able to extract minerals from DRC and sell them as Rwandan.“We cannot have a situation where a mineral deal becomes part of this process with a country that does not have the minerals, because that’s a basis for continued conflict,” Dangor said.Boulos told Reuters the US is interested in exploring minerals in neighbouring Rwanda, but called on the country to first withdraw its troops from the DRC and stop supporting M23. Rwanda denies involvement in the conflict.A permanent peace deal will be difficult because there are Congolese citizens in M23, and M23 is not the only armed group. One Kigali insider who did not want his name used warns that a “semi-permanent grey zone” -- with M23 the de facto government while the area remains legally part of the DRC -- is likely without a binding, effective agreement. “The main problem is domestic in the DRC and can only be solved by the DRC,” he said. This was the main reason South Africa’s peace-keepers were unlikely to succeed. Some remain there, waiting for M23 and Rwanda to facilitate their evacuation. Joel Pollak, the former South African who is now an American commentator with close ties to the Trump administration, told Biznews in a podcast that the new administration has ambitious plans to engage with more Atlantic facing African states. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have built strong ties with Angola, despite its historic allegiance to the former Soviet Union. The US has funded the rebuilding of the rail link which would facilitate transporting minerals from the mines of the DRC.South Africa remains an important rail route despite extensive breakdowns in Transnet’s service. Most central African copper and cobalt still leaves the continent through South African ports. In the White House meetings, increasing US investment in South African mining was also discussed, but reforms will be needed to jumpstart stalled exploration. For that, we need action from the ministry of mineral and petroleum resources, headed by Gwede Mantashe.

John Matisonn: Trump and Ramaphosa find common ground in Africa’s battle for peace - and minerals

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