New sanctions show limits of Trump influence over Congo conflict - Semafor
A stalemate in the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo is raising fresh doubts about the Trump administration’s ability to influence it.
The US imposed sanctions on Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense and a bank serving its security services earlier this week, accusing Kigali of backing and fighting alongside M23 rebels in eastern Congo nearly a year after US President Donald Trump declared the war over.
“It will continue raising questions about US leadership within these matters, because the US is the guarantor of this particular agreement,” said Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Foreign Policy Institute, of the stalemate.
Trump hosted Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congo President Félix Tshisekedi in Washington last December to sign accords to end the war. But fighting never abated.
The State Department now says “thousands” of Rwanda Defense Force troops are fighting in Congo and that some “have also brought in surface-to-air missiles and jamming equipment that endanger civilian aviation.”
In announcing the sanctions, the Treasury Department accused Zigama Credit and Savings Society of helping finance the Rwandan military’s support for Congolese rebels, including moving gold out of M23-held territory. The action follows sanctions on Rwanda’s army and four senior commanders in March and on a Kigali gold refinery in June.
The sanctions, however, are unlikely to have a major impact on Rwanda, argued Dizolele, though Kigali will be cognizant of the impact on its image in the eyes of the West. “They will shrug it off, they will adjust, but it stings,” he said.
Trump’s foreign policy moves have often generated controversy and backlash, particularly among Democrats, but in this case he has bipartisan support. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who pressed the NBA this week over its Rwanda partnership alongside Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said he supported the new sanctions.
“Rwanda remains ready to fully implement the Washington Accords, concurrently with the willingness of the DRC to fulfill those commitments, and with the mediator holding all parties accountable,” Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said, accusing Congo of failing to meet its own requirements under the deal.
