OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
3:08 PM – Thursday, December 4, 2025
President Donald Trump hosted Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi at the White House and the U.S. Institute of Peace, recently renamed the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace, in Washington, D.C.
The event was described by officials as the culmination of peace talks between the African nations.
Together, they signed the “Washington Accords” — a peace agreement formalizing a permanent ceasefire, disarmament of non-state armed groups, refugee returns, accountability for atrocities, and economic cooperation on critical minerals like rare earths and cobalt.
The event followed preliminary agreements signed by the countries’ foreign ministers in June this year and further talks in Qatar in November, amid ongoing but sporadic violence in eastern DRC involving Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
Trump highlighted the deal as a “great day” for Africa and the world, tying it to U.S. economic interests in the region’s resources.
“It’s a great day for Africa, a great day for the world,” Trump said before the leaders signed the pact.
Prior to the summit in the U.S., fighting between the two countries had begun escalating.
DR Congo and Rwanda have been engaged in intermittent armed conflicts and proxy wars for nearly 30 years, since the First Congo War in 1996 in which Rwanda invaded Zaire (modern-day DRC) to dismantle refugee camps sheltering Hutu refugees who were seen as an ongoing threat after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
Trump also emphasized the particular timing the summit took place, days before celebrating the birth of the “Prince of Peace,” referring to Jesus, on Christmas. He further declared that the agreement would end “one of the longest running conflicts anywhere in the world with far more than 10 million people killed.”
“Today, we commit to stopping decades of violence and bloodshed, and to beginning a new era of harmony and cooperation between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda,” Trump stated, praising the two presidents as “courageous leaders.”
In addition to the end of the decades-long deadly conflict, the three world leaders signed a deal that would “unlock new opportunities for the United States to access critical minerals and provide economic benefits to everybody.”
President Trump stated that the U.S. would send its “biggest and greatest companies” to the two countries to obtain rare earth minerals. This aligns with the GOP administration’s efforts to secure alternative supplies amid competition with China — which dominates global rare earth production.
“Today we’re succeeding where so many others have failed,” Trump said, taking a jab at other administrations that could not bring an end to the crisis in nearly three decades.
Trump held the signing ceremony at the U.S. Institute of Peace building in Washington, which was recently renamed the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace.
This is another addition to the president’s list of successful foreign peace agreements he helped to broker. At the summit on Thursday, Trump highlighted the deal as the eighth foreign conflict his administration has helped to solve in less than a year since he re-entered office.
During his first term in office, Trump also spearheaded the historic signing of the Abraham Accords, taming tensions between Israel and its surrounding Arab neighbors, which even more countries have sought to join in recent months.
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