In a recent court decision regarding a gold dealer sanctioned for contributing to conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the judge referenced Milton’s Paradise Lost, recounting that once the rebel angel Mammon had fallen to earth, he dispatched “his crew” of fallen angels to “dig out ribs of gold.” Today, ribs of gold and other essential treasures are a major driver of one of the deadliest wars in the world.
A full-scale cross-border invasion has been unfolding in an oft-ignored corner of the world, but one with important U.S. and European interests at stake, given the humanitarian toll and gold and other minerals that play a key role in the conflict. Rwandan-backed M23 rebels and as many as 12,000 of Rwanda’s own troops have fueled what is now one of the three most acute humanitarian crises in the world, with 6.5 million people displaced, as they have conquered the two largest cities in eastern DRC, Goma and Bukavu. Additionally, Rwanda is jeopardizing the global supply of some of the minerals by restarting a war in the DRC that threatens to expand beyond the east. For its part, the DRC government endangers the supply of these minerals through corruption that mainly favors China.
President Donald Trump has called the conflict “a very serious problem,” and his administration has sanctioned an influential Rwandan government minister, as well as the M23 spokesperson and two of his companies, following warnings by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the Rwandan and DRC presidents. Several European countries have suspended aid, as well. Earlier this month, Trump tapped businessman Massad Boulos, his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law, as an envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region.
Rwanda asserts that the Congolese Tutsi population is at risk and that the remnants of the militia that committed the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are an existential threat, but the reality behind Rwanda’s invasion is more complicated. Among other factors, Rwanda and its proxy militias have been extracting, smuggling, and exporting hundreds of millions of dollars of illicit conflict gold and critical minerals from the DRC for nearly three decades. These exports have only increased since its latest invasion alongside the M23.
Critical minerals of interest to the United States and Europe are at stake, as the DRC contains one of the world’s largest concentrations of tantalum, cobalt, copper, and tin used in smartphones, electric vehicles, and a variety of other products. The DRC is the world’s largest producer of cobalt (accounting for more than 75 percent of global production) and tantalum (more than 40 percent). Rwanda has smaller reserves of tantalum, tin, and tungsten, but it reportedly exports far more than it produces, including Congolese minerals.
The illicit gold trade from eastern DRC is key. Gold is a chief source of revenue for armed groups, who “have increasingly fought for control of gold mines,” a U.S. government watchdog said recently. The DRC government set up a de facto gold trading monopoly in 2022 that U.N. experts said “highly” possibly was “permeated by gold produced from sites which remain under the control of armed groups,” but had cut out Rwanda. In response, M23 took over gold mines, and Rwanda set up its own new refinery and exported a record $885 million worth of gold in 2023, despite having virtually no domestic gold mines. Uganda, which has also supported M23 to a lesser extent, also exported a record $3.4 billion worth of gold in 2024, including significant amounts from eastern DRC. All of the gold flows to the United Arab Emirates.
Rwanda is also profiting from critical minerals from the conflict zone. According to a December 2024 U.N. investigative report, M23 captured one of the world’s largest coltan mines (tantalum is extracted from coltan) in April 2024, and then ensured a monopoly for the export of tantalum from that mine to Rwanda, which then re-exports it.
Recent Escalation Was Preventable
The escalation of the conflict since this January was entirely preventable. After an eight-year hiatus, Rwanda relaunched the M23 in 2021, and the Rwandan army and its proxy have been wreaking havoc since then. There are more than 100 other smaller armed groups in the DRC, but none of them are remotely as powerful as the M23 and don’t have the massive backing of a neighboring State. A host of mediators and peacekeeping forces also failed to prevent the escalation.
Facing little to no accountability and buoyed by a controversial European Union minerals export deal signed in February 2024, Rwanda has gradually increased its support for the M23. A U.N. investigative report in June 2024 noted that the M23 abducted children as young as 12 to become child soldiers, and the above-referenced December U.N. follow-up report stated that the M23’s commanding general “continued to receive instructions and support from [Rwandan Defense Forces] RDF and Rwandan intelligence.” The investigators also determined that “every M23 unit was supervised and supported by RDF special forces.” The United States continues to call on Rwanda to withdraw its troops; Rwanda denies that its troops are present.
On the other side of the conflict, the DRC army continues to collaborate with an armed group that includes leaders and militia involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the FDLR. The FDLR and allied “Wazalendo” militias have extensively abused human rights in eastern DRC and profited from conflict gold.
Meanwhile, corruption is worsening in the DRC, whose international corruption rating is lower under President Felix Tshisekedi, who has been in office since 2019, than his predecessor Joseph Kabila. In 2022, a top Tshisekedi advisor was caught on tape requesting a large bribe for a mining deal, and last year, several ministers resigned over alleged corruption. Furthermore, the government has lobbied the United States on behalf of mining magnate Dan Gertler, who was sanctioned after he “amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the [DRC].” Moreover, repression remains very high under Tshisekedi’s regime, with increasing crackdowns on activists, journalists, and protestors.
Irresponsible Western Dealmaking
Noting Trump’s bid for Ukraine’s critical mineral wealth, Tshisekedi has proposed deals with the United States and Europe for access to DRC’s minerals in exchange for their support in ending Rwanda’s invasion of eastern DRC.
Three possible deals emerge from this scenario. The first would be a U.S.-DRC deal that would give U.S. companies stakes in strategic cobalt and copper mines, allow Rwanda/M23 to control parts of eastern DRC, and leave Tshisekedi in power. A second option would be a nontransparent deal to allow the U.S. extensive access to Congolese minerals and force Rwanda to leave. A third possibility would be Rwanda toppling Tshisekedi and striking its own minerals deal with the United States, Europe, and others.
All these deals would be bad for the future of the DRC. First, any deal must respect the sovereignty of the DRC. Second, the DRC needs transparency, accountability, and democratic governance, and any deal should include strong provisions to increase, not decrease those elements. For example, any agreement must follow strict contract and revenue transparency requirements from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) standards to prevent corruption. Any pacts also must include clear mechanisms to ensure that Congolese people benefit from their own natural resources, and increased democratic provisions to allow the Congolese people a strong say in their future.
A Better End to the Conflict
Compared to the current trajectory, a better end to the conflict is possible. Building on the recent Trump administration sanctions, the United States, the U.K., and the EU should impose escalating targeted network sanctions against senior Rwandan and DRC officials and their affiliated companies and enablers until the Rwandan government withdraws its troops from foreign soil and ends all support for — and pulls back — the M23, and the DRC government halts its aid to the FDLR.
The United States and Europe can utilize a second point of leverage: direct budget support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that the DRC and Rwandan governments depend on. U.S. and European governments should vote to have this multilateral aid frozen immediately. The combination of U.S. and EU sanctions and suspension of World Bank budget support for Rwanda was effective when the first M23 crisis unfolded in 2012, forcing Rwanda to pull its proxy out of DRC. Individual governments have recently acted, from the U.K. to Germany to Canada to Belgium, but a much bigger, coordinated effort is needed. The support can be turned back on and sanctions can be reversed if the governments deescalate the crisis.
In addition, there must be increased public and private pressure on the conflict gold profiteers. The U.S. and the EU should sanction gold traders and refiners in the UAE, Rwanda, and Uganda who are buying and selling conflict gold, much like when the United States sanctioned a UAE-based company that purchased gold from Sudan’s genocidal Rapid Support Forces. Banks, jewelers, and their associations such as the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) should mark the UAE as a red-flag zone for gold purchases until the UAE halts conflict-gold purchases from the region.
Finally, the EU should end its deal with Rwanda for the critical minerals it has been smuggling from eastern DRC. If Rwanda withdraws its troops and those of the M23 and the DRC government halts its support to armed groups, the EU and the United States together could lock in new agreements for future critical-mineral exports, but only if maximum transparency is applied to prevent corruption.
Ramping up escalating network sanctions on the ‘crew of fallen angels’ prosecuting and profiting from the violence, freezing multilateral aid to the two governments, ending minerals deals with Rwanda and negotiating new ones with DRC, and targeting the conflict gold trade would not cost U.S. or EU taxpayers any money. Yet they would go a long way toward protecting strategic mineral supplies, saving lives, introducing accountability for the suffering, and preventing a much wider crisis. That’s a deal the Trump administration should invest in.