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UNITED NATIONS — The Democratic Republic of Congo doesn’t view rising American involvement in its essential minerals business as a contest with China, the nation’s overseas minister advised Fox Information Digital, arguing that Kinshasa wants a number of companions to remodel its huge pure wealth into prosperity for its individuals.
“I don’t like speaking about competitors. I like speaking about complementarity,” International Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner stated in an unique interview on the United Nations.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance meet Democratic Republic of the Congo International Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner within the Oval Workplace on the White Home in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)
“A rustic as huge because the USA, but in addition a rustic as huge because the DRC and as huge as China, they don’t develop simply with one single associate,” she added. “They develop with completely different partnerships that reply to completely different wants and that carry completely different experience to the desk.”
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The feedback come because the Trump administration seeks to extend American entry to Congo’s copper, cobalt, lithium, gold and different strategic assets, whereas lowering U.S. reliance on mineral provide chains dominated by China.
A strategic partnership signed by Washington and Kinshasa Dec. 4, 2025, requires elevated financial cooperation, funding and the event of safe and clear critical-mineral provide chains. The settlement accompanied a broader regional framework linking financial integration to efforts to finish many years of battle between Congo and Rwanda.
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Excavators and drillers at work in an open pit at Tenke Fungurume, a copper and cobalt mine 110 km (68 miles) northwest of Lubumbashi in Congo’s copper-producing south Jan. 29, 2013. (Reuters/Jonny Hogg/File Photograph)
A separate association involving DR Congo’s state mining firm Gécamines and commodities dealer Mercuria might give U.S. consumers precedence entry to some copper and cobalt provides, Reuters reported Dec. 5, 2025. The U.S. Worldwide Improvement Finance Company additionally expressed curiosity in taking a strategic stake within the partnership.
Kayikwamba Wagner stated relations between the U.S. and DR Congo had been taking “a extra concrete form” based mostly on mutual financial pursuits.
She stated Kinshasa welcomed “extra U.S. pursuits within the DRC” that might assist the nation flip its mineral wealth into “tangible transformations for the lives of Congolese,” whereas additionally delivering advantages to American companions.
Talking individually at a high-level U.N. assembly on essential minerals Tuesday, Kayikwamba Wagner warned that the worldwide shift towards clear vitality should not reproduce an financial mannequin by which uncooked supplies depart Africa whereas processing, expertise and a lot of the income stay elsewhere.
“The worldwide vitality transition should not develop into one other extractive transition,” she stated. “If it merely replaces one type of dependency with one other, it’s going to have fallen wanting its promise.”
She known as for overseas partnerships to assist native processing, infrastructure, expertise transfers, analysis, industrialization and entry to financing — not merely safe provides of uncooked supplies.
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M23 rebels stand with their weapons in Kibumba, within the japanese of Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 23, 2022. (AP Photograph/Moses Sawasawa)
The minerals push is intently linked to the U.S.-mediated peace course of between the DRC and Rwanda. The international locations initially signed a peace settlement in Washington June 27, 2025, earlier than presidents Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame reaffirmed the deal and signed associated financial agreements on Dec. 4. The framework was meant each to cut back preventing and entice Western funding to a area wealthy in cobalt, copper, tantalum and different minerals.
Kayikwamba Wagner acknowledged that the settlement had not ended the violence however stated Washington’s willingness to impose penalties for violations confirmed that the method remained significant.
“This can be a 30-year battle we’re coping with,” she stated. “It’s not going to occur in a single day.”
She praised the administration for sanctioning the Rwanda Protection Power and senior Rwandan officers over what the Treasury Division described as their assist for the M23 insurgent group. Treasury stated in March that the RDF had supported, educated and fought alongside M23 because it seized territory and strategic mining places in japanese Congo. Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting M23.
“I discover it encouraging to see that now we have with us a associate that’s not keen to surrender on the first impediment,” Kayikwamba Wagner stated.
She was in New York because the DRC, which holds the Security Council presidency for July, elevated the connection between pure assets, armed battle and sexual violence.
Kayikwamba Wagner stated rape and different types of conflict-related sexual violence had risen sharply in areas held by M23 and Rwandan forces, affecting ladies and ladies in addition to males and boys.
Victims in occupied areas, she stated, usually lack entry to courts, healthcare or different avenues for redress.
“That is additionally one of many the reason why we proceed to be mobilized towards this unlawful occupation of japanese DRC,” she stated, arguing that restoring state authority was important to offering survivors with justice and medical care.
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President Donald Trump arrives for a signing ceremony with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi on the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace Dec. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photograph/Evan Vucci)
In her U.N. remarks, she cited the Rubaya mining space, which is beneath M23 management and provides a big share of world tantalum demand. She stated U.N. specialists estimated that at the very least 1,400 tons of coltan had been smuggled into Rwanda in the course of the first yr after the mines had been seized, producing roughly $800,000 per thirty days for the armed group.
The Treasury Division imposed extra sanctions on June 25 towards a community it accused of working with M23 to smuggle minerals from japanese Congo into Rwanda, saying the motion was meant to assist the Washington peace framework and enhance transparency in regional mineral provide chains.
