The Democratic Republic of Congo is a vast, mineral-rich Central African country. Its president is Félix Tshisekedi. Congo is 88 times the size of Rwanda. Annual GDP per person is less than $650. The country's tourism budget is $18m.
In 2025 Congo's tourism ministry struck a sponsorship deal with AC Milan, the Italian football club. The deal is driven by diplomacy rather than tourism: Rwanda made a sponsorship deal with Arsenal in 2018, said to be worth $10m a year, and later struck similar agreements with Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich. Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, Congo's foreign minister, pressed those clubs to end their deals with Rwanda, to no avail. The AC Milan deal aligns with Italy's new Africa policy, for which it earmarked €5.5bn in 2024, with Congo billed as a chief beneficiary. An American firm bought a majority stake in AC Milan in 2022.
In 1997 Rwanda, alongside Uganda, toppled Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's dictator, and installed Laurent Kabila as leader of what became Congo. When Kabila proved less pliant than hoped, Rwanda invaded again, helping bring about the Second Congo War (1998-2003), which involved nine African states and is believed to have been responsible for 5.4m deaths, mostly from disease and hunger, making it the most lethal conflict of this century.
Eastern Congo has been the theatre of a long-running conflict fuelled in part by Rwanda. The M23 militia, backed by Rwanda's army, seized the cities of Goma and Bukavu in early 2025. In Goma, M23 set up an ersatz version of Kagame's rule in Rwanda, ordering streets cleaned at the point of a gun. The conflict has uprooted millions and, in 2025 alone, killed thousands.
The FDLR, a Hutu militia with roots in the Rwandan genocide, also operates in eastern Congo and has collaborated with the Congolese army.
The Congo River Alliance, a political coalition led by M23, says it wants regime change in Kinshasa. Joseph Kabila, son of Laurent and Tshisekedi's predecessor, reportedly arrived in Goma on May 26th 2025, sparking speculation that he is plotting a comeback.
Guy-Robert Lukama, former chair of Gécamines (the main state-owned miner), estimated that Chinese entities have stakes in 90% of Congolese mining projects. In December 2025 American firms secured the first crack at a trove of mines and exploration sites. The US government invested $553m in the Lobito Corridor, a railway from Congo's copperbelt to Angola's Atlantic coast, for faster shipping to America. In February 2026 Orion CMC, a consortium that includes the American government, agreed to buy a 40% stake in the only Western-controlled copper and cobalt mines in Congo, injecting $1.8bn in total.
Congo supplies 70% of the world's cobalt, a battery ingredient. In February 2025 the government stopped cobalt exports for four months, later extending the ban until September; cobalt prices soared. The ban has accelerated a shift among carmakers towards batteries that use much less cobalt, or none at all.
Congo also holds vast reserves of copper, gold and the "3T" minerals important in electronics: tin, tungsten and tantalum. The Trump administration wants America to secure more of these resources and to see more American firms profit in the region. Tshisekedi has offered America access to minerals in exchange for support against Rwanda.
When Trump returned to office in January 2025, China owned 80% of Congo's mining output, including Tenke Fungurume, a mine once owned by an American firm and now the second-biggest source of cobalt in the world. In 2007 Congo had handed Chinese miners a tax break until 2040, in return for investments worth $9bn (only $6bn materialised). Under the Washington Accords, Congo must keep its most promising mineral finds in a "strategic asset reserve" (SAR) for American investors; firms from allied countries can also bid, but America has the final say. The SAR reportedly includes the Rubaya mine, which supplies 15% of the world's coltan, a metal used in smartphones—though the mine is currently controlled by M23. Between 2007 and 2018, Glencore, the biggest Western investor in Congo, admitted to paying bribes in relation to its mines in the country. In December 2025 Mercuria, a Swiss trading firm, announced a $1bn partnership with Gecamines, a state-owned mining firm. No single authority collects tax; foreign mining firms have paid 45 different state organs, and the country has been in court with over half the foreign firms in its mines since 2002.
In April 2025 KoBold Metals, an American mining firm, said it was expanding into Congo by taking over a lithium mine. In May a ban on Elon Musk's Starlink was lifted; the deal was part of Congo's effort to win American favour in its negotiations to end the war with Rwanda. Erik Prince, who used to head Blackwater, has reportedly struck a deal with Kinshasa to help tackle copper-smuggling. Rwanda earns hundreds of millions of dollars from exporting smuggled gold and other metals from Congolese territory.
In early February 2026 at least 200 people, including children, died after a mine collapsed at Rubaya in the east of Congo. The Rubaya mines hold 15% of the world's coltan, a mineral used in phones, much of it mined illegally. M23 has controlled the mines since 2024. Congo's government blamed the deaths on the rebels, whom it accuses of looting the mines on Rwanda's behalf. There is evidence Congolese minerals are exported through Rwanda, which denies this. Mining conditions are terrible across Congo and accidents are common.
Ituri province in the east has been racked by violence since 2017, as militias linked to the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups battle over access to land, livestock and gold mines. More than 1m people in Ituri have been forced to flee their homes; some 100,000 were displaced between January and March 2025 alone.
Congo first invited Ugandan troops in 2021 to help fight jihadists affiliated with Islamic State (IS). General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda's army chief and son of the president, flew to Kinshasa in June 2025 for a meeting that officially expanded the operation to Ituri. In practice, alarmed by M23's advance farther south, Uganda had already increased its deployment to around 6,000 troops without Congo's permission, according to a UN report. Ituri is rich in gold, much of it smuggled out through Uganda. It also has oil and gas deposits that Uganda is exploiting from its side of the border.
Uganda is backing the Hema. Muhoozi has said his troops will defend them and target the Co-operative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), a militia that claims to protect the Lendu. Uganda is also quietly backing a new armed group recruited from among the Hema, according to the UN. Beyond stirring up trouble in Ituri, the Ugandan deployment could cement M23's hold over the parts of eastern Congo that Kinshasa wants it to relinquish. Muhoozi has praised M23 and Paul Kagame on social media. On July 9th 2025 Uganda reopened a border crossing into M23-held territory in North Kivu.
Ebola was first discovered in Congo in 1976. By 2026 Congo had recorded its 17th outbreak; the virus kills 30-50% of those it infects. Congo's experience means it has improved its response with every new outbreak: vaccines against the most common Zaire strain (since 2015) and antibody treatments are now available. The most recent outbreak, in the remote province of Kasai in September 2025, was the first Congo has had to fight without American help, following the gutting of USAID.
In May 2026 a fresh outbreak emerged in Ituri, in eastern Congo, caused by the rarer Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no licensed vaccine or rapid test. Samples taken in Ituri must be flown 2,000km to Kinshasa, the capital, for testing. By May 20th there were almost 600 suspected cases and 139 deaths; the WHO designated the outbreak a "public-health emergency of international concern" on May 17th 2026—only the ninth such declaration since 2005. Two Congolese were diagnosed in Kampala, Uganda; an American doctor was evacuated to Germany. The outbreak risks being the worst Ebola epidemic since at least 2018, when more than 2,000 people died in eastern Congo. The WHO said two vaccines are being developed that show promise against Bundibugyo. M23 has declined to reopen the Goma airport, forcing aid workers to route via Rwanda and Uganda. On May 18th 2026 the State Department promised $13m, a fraction of what America spent in 2014-16. Africa CDC, independent of America's CDC, is taking a leading role.
The failure of the American-brokered peace deal to end fighting in the east has fuelled paranoia within the government. A widening crackdown on the opposition has made it disturbingly common for armed men to take opponents away to secret detention sites. All major opposition parties have complained about arbitrary arrests; most of their leaders are in exile. Associates of Joseph Kabila, whom the government accuses of colluding with M23, are most at risk. A military court sentenced Kabila, who is probably outside the country, to death for treason in October 2025. His party has been banned. High-profile cases are handled by the CNC, a shadowy, relatively new security agency that reports directly to the president. Over the past year Congo has arrested a former army chief of staff, a former head of its military intelligence agency and the former head of the president's personal military bureau, among others.
On April 25th 2025 Marco Rubio, America's secretary of state, hosted the foreign ministers of Congo and Rwanda. They signed a "declaration of principles" that America hopes will lead to a formal peace deal. Both want the other to move first: Congo wants M23 and Rwanda out of the Kivus; Rwanda wants to know the FDLR will be quashed.
On June 27th 2025 the foreign ministers of Congo and Rwanda stood in the Oval Office next to Donald Trump and signed a peace deal, brokered by America and Qatar. The deal calls for Rwandan troops to leave Congolese territory within 90 days; Congo, for its part, is to neutralise the FDLR. It is similar to an earlier agreement mediated by Angola that fell through in December 2024 when Kagame failed to turn up for the signing. Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, Congo's foreign minister, said the deal would "gradually contribute to defusing tensions". Trump promised "very severe penalties" if either party broke its side of the bargain and hopes the agreement will pave the way for American investors to profit from Congo's mineral resources. The deal is vague on the future of M23 and the fate of the parts of eastern Congo the militia occupies; a separate set of talks between M23 and Congo, brokered by Qatar, is proving thorny.
On December 4th 2025 Trump hosted Kagame and Tshisekedi in Washington to celebrate what he called the "Washington Accords"—a formal signing of the June peace accord alongside bilateral deals to improve American access to minerals from both countries and pave the way for American investors in mining. Congo and Rwanda also agreed to strengthen cross-border supply chains and infrastructure. The two leaders studiously avoided each other's eye and did not shake hands. Fighting in eastern Congo continued unabated: more than 200,000 people fled in the days around the ceremony. On December 10th M23 took control of Uvira, a city on the border with Burundi, cutting the Congolese army's resupply link through Bujumbura airport and cementing Rwandan control over eastern Congo. Burundian soldiers are fighting alongside Congolese troops and pro-government militias against M23 and Rwandan soldiers. In January 2026 M23 withdrew from Uvira under American pressure. But fighting has since spread into South Kivu's mountainous back country. After M23's military spokesman, Willy Ngoma, was killed in a drone strike near Rubaya in February, the group's allies intensified their offensive. Half a million people in Fizi territory have been displaced since December. The conflict is reviving ethnic tensions: the largest Banyamulenge (Tutsi) militia has officially joined M23. There are fears the fighting could reach Kalemie, 260km south, bringing it uncomfortably close to the copper belt where the Trump administration wants American firms to invest. An Angolan-brokered initiative to resume talks fizzled in February; in early March America imposed new sanctions on Rwandan officials and on Rwanda's armed forces.
I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go."