"When Donald Trump boasted recently that he had stopped the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo though fighting persists in the DRC, at appalling human cost he made clear that his goals went beyond a long-sought Nobel Peace prize. They said to me, Please, please, we would love you to come and take our minerals.' Which we'll do, the US president added. Now he is following through. Last Monday he launched a new strategic reserve plan, Project Vault, worth almost $12bn."
"Two days later, JD Vance hosted a summit seeking to create a trade zone for critical minerals. The US and others are trying to counter the dominance of Beijing, which was far quicker to grasp the strategic importance of such resources. Key to its plan is a deal touted as a way to bring the DRC wealth and create incentives for peace. Few on the ground are convinced."
Donald Trump's claims about ending conflict between Rwanda and the DRC preceded concrete US initiatives to secure critical minerals, including Project Vault and a trade-zone summit. These moves aim to challenge Beijing's dominance in strategic resources but face skepticism from Congolese communities. A proposed deal would freeze DRC tax and regulatory regimes for a decade and does not support domestic processing capacity. The EU has recently weakened due diligence rules. The DRC continues to endure centuries of plunder, extreme poverty for most citizens, deadly artisanal mining accidents, and environmental and social harms linked to extraction for global clean-energy needs.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]