The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) signed a peace deal earlier this month, marking the eighth war single-handedly ended by an American leader, according to the White House’s calculations, with US President Donald Trump happily declaring, “Today we have succeeded where so many others have failed.”
However, across the Atlantic, the term “peace” remains elusive in many parts of the African continent, including the DRC.
Instead of celebrating the agreement signed on December 4, people in eastern DRC remained hidden in their homes, fearful of what would happen next, as hostilities continued.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in the week following the peace agreement, more than 500,000 people remained displaced across the region.
Turbulent times despite ‘peace’
“Signature [of the peace deal] Renewed fighting broke out between rebels and DRC defense forces. “The result was that rebels took control of new areas, including the city of Uvira,” an unnamed source at a humanitarian organization operating in the DRC told DW. Reports on Tuesday indicated that M23 fighters were preparing to withdraw from the strategic city following a request from U.S. mediators.
“This seems more like a political agreement based on the result of US pressure than a real peace process or agreement,” the aid worker said.
But the DRC is not the only place where Trump’s rhetoric about ending wars and establishing order seems to be smoke and mirrors.
More than half a million people have fled renewed border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand, following a White House-sponsored peace ceremony in October.
Violations of ceasefire terms have also been recorded between Israel and Hamas in recent weeks, and Trump’s assumption of a US role in the brief war between Israel and Iran earlier this year reflects the Islamic Republic’s lack of military capabilities to retaliate against Israel rather than a genuine peace initiative.
Rescheduling battles and postponing conflicts
Of the eight wars Trump claims to have ended, two were not real conflicts at all: there was no state of war between Egypt and Ethiopia or between Serbia and Kosovo. Those “conflicts” were merely diplomatic disagreements.
Elsewhere, even Trump’s allies are distancing themselves from his sphere of influence: Regarding tensions between India and Pakistan, New Delhi wants to reduce US involvement, while Pakistan continues to woo Trump’s administration.
The only conflict that the Trump administration can clearly say it helped resolve is the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where America’s active involvement effectively ended nearly 40 years of tension.
“What they called peace was mostly temporary pauses, normalization deals or press-conference victories that ignored the root causes of the conflict,” said Medea Benjamin, founder of the US-based anti-war group Code Pink. “These were not durable peace agreements but short-term political reforms that postponed rather than prevented renewed war,” he told DW.
not all that glitters is gold
As a man with a penchant for gold, Trump’s desire to go down in history as the fifth US president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize is no secret.
However, historian Theo Zenou argued that a larger force drove the president’s efforts during his second term in the White House: his “desire to be admired around the world as a great leader.”
“He knows there is nothing more valuable than being considered a peacemaker. However, he does not want to do the difficult work of being a peacemaker, which involves overseeing long processes of reconciliation between warring countries,” Zenou told DW.
Eugenio Costa Almeida, a researcher at the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-UL), said Trump’s role as a diplomat has a strategy that goes beyond the dimension of personal reputation, operating “at the intersection of geopolitical strategy, economic interests, and the logic of confirming personal and electoral leadership.”
‘America first, rest of the world second.’
However, Costa Almeida also said that US leaders are failing to effectively navigate that difficult intersection, stressing that the proliferation of peace initiatives promoted by Trump does not include key actors in the conflicts.
In the case of the DRC, he highlighted that the M23 rebel group was completely excluded from the peace agreement, having signed a temporary agreement with the DRC government in Qatar months earlier.
For Benjamin, Trump’s peacebuilding efforts have nothing to do with any genuine interest in healing a broken world; Rather, they reflect the expressed desires of their political supporters.
Benjamin pointed out that by pretending to end these conflicts abroad, the US president gets to live up to the “America First” slogan that got him elected by his MAGA supporters, allowing Trump to justify cutting off military, development and other financial aid to foreign countries.
Peace as a tool of coercion
Yet the issue of domestic war still remains: America’s growing hegemonic competition with China.
According to the recently unveiled National Security Strategy Plan, countering China’s power on the international stage is now one of the US government’s top priorities.
Signing the so-called peace agreements allows Trump to “assert global leadership and establish the United States as an indispensable arbiter at a time when China is expanding its diplomatic and economic influence in Africa as well as other regions,” Costa Almeida said.
“Competition among global powers, particularly for access to strategic resources such as critical minerals and rare earth minerals in the DRC, suggests that reducing the sphere of influence of rivals such as China may be an underlying factor,” he said.
Zenou pointed out that Trump is willing to use “all means acceptable to him” to achieve his and America’s goals, adding that he would not hesitate to resort to “coercion or intimidation” to get what he wants.
Thus, the agreements made by Trump may unwittingly serve the primary purpose between partner countries.” [Trump]”And to ensure lower tariffs or closer cooperation with the US on economic and security matters,” Zenou said.
Edited by: Serton Sanderson