Can Kinshasa hit minerals with the United States?

The Democratic Republic of Congo seems to be turning to the United States in its recent efforts to find an ally in its fight with the progress of the M23 rebels.

Acknowledging that President Donald Trump's White House is interested in transactional relations – and seeing the proposed deal with mineral minerals in Ukraine, the resources rich in Congo, hopes to reach his own agreement with Washington.

Trump is also reported to soon appoint a father -in -law of his daughter Tiffany, a key role in the region.

Congoy Government spokesman Patrick Muya has confirmed to the BBC Newsday program that his country wants to bring the United States on board and provide it “with some critical minerals.”

“Of course … we can also talk about security,” he added.

D -Congo is in difficulty military.

M23 fighters – backed by neighboring Rwanda – achieved great achievements in parts of minerals east of the country.

Regional forces – first from the east, and then South Africa – who had to provide some help, failed to restrain the rebels. The M23 talks about advancing the west in an attempt to seize the capital, Kinshasa.

Given the dangers, it is not surprising that President Felix Tshiziekedes can look for ways to secure his position.

On February 22, TSHISEKEDI has been reported by New York Times To say that the Trump administration is interested in a deal involving strategic minerals.

The previous day, the Business Council in Africa -USA – a lobbying group – wrote to the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on behalf of a Congoan senator describing a possible deal that includes “economic and military partnership”.

Congo is thought to have 24TN -value (£ 19tn) unused resources -including cobalt, gold and copper.

Currently, the country is the largest COBALT supplier in the world – which has defense and aerospace space applications, as well as it is essential for batteries in electric vehicles – but the greater part of it goes to China. In addition, there are significant fields of lithium, tantalum and uranium, which also have military applications.

Still US invests in a huge infrastructure project – The lobby corridor – designed to transport goods outside Central Africa to a port in Angola, its companies do not participate in extraction in the Congo.

As China dominates the Congoan mineral sector, there may be a “expanding strategic gap in which racing countries continue to monopolize the resources of Africa,” the letter to Rubio said.

In theory, Congo can offer favorable conditions to US companies to operate resources.

But according to extraction analyst, Gregory Mttembu-Palter, as the United States, unlike China, relies on private trading companies to do the job, they can decide that it is too risky to do business there.

But all this is highly speculative and a spokesman for the US State Department said there was nothing to be visualized at that moment. “

Nevertheless, the United States “are open to discuss partnerships in this sector”, which are in line with the executive order aimed at turning the US into a “leading producer and processor of non -fuel minerals, including minerals of rare earthly.”

A key area may be to “strengthen military cooperation,” as the letter to Rubio says it.

This would include:

• Soldiers' Training and Equipment “To Protection of Mineral Delivery Routes”
• Giving US access to military bases “to protect strategic resources”
• And “replacing ineffective peace -maintaining operations with direct US security cooperation.”

The congoer spokesman declined to confirm these details, but there is some skepticism about how realistic and directly effective they can be.

According to Stephanie Walters, a regional analyst at the South African Institute of International Affairs, if Kinshasa wants a US military presence to the east, then “this is not very likely to happen.”

In addition, “weapons and training are longer -term problems,” she told the BBC Focus on Africa.

“I think that the propagandment that the Congo government is making is certainly due to the active military situation in the East and I am not convinced that what the US can offer in exchange is really something that can handle the sharp need right now.”

Konggosian mining industry analyst Jean-Pierre Okenda said that known supervision of the transaction would be reasonable, suggesting that civil society and civil society should be consulted if it serves the interests of people.

Looking at the bigger picture, he said that he was moving towards a more peaceful future in order to deal with the “kleptocratic government of the state”.

A previous deal with China, which gave access to mining in exchange for infrastructure projects, has been criticized for not providing part of the promise.

Since then, Tshisekedi has renegotiated this, but the lack of transparency in these conversations has been criticized.

Nothing concrete probably will happen soon.

While Muya, talking about Kinshas, ​​was unclear about what we could expect, he told the BBC that “in the coming days we can have more details to share.”

He added that there was “political will (from Tshisekedi) and I think the US has attention to these issues.”

By the US, According to the Semafor news websitePresident Trump must announce that Masad Bullos will be the new Messenger of the Big Lakes of the White House.

He is the father of Michael Bullos, who is married to Trump's daughter Tiffany and is a Senior Trump advisor to Arabic and Middle Eastern issues since December.

Among his business interests is a company based in Nigeria, which specializes in the distribution of motor vehicles and equipment in West Africa – and is expected to fly to Kinshasa at some point over the next few weeks.