KINSHASA, Congo — The minute the sun rises in Kinshasa, the streets come alive to the rhythm of a ubiquitous informal economy. Street vendors hustle in order to afford the ever-increasing cost of living. Food staples, transportation and fuel are all subject to the fluctuations of an unstable foreign currency exchange rate. For many households, it has become impossible to meet basic needs.
And yet the country, rich in natural resources, holds some of the world’s most sought-after raw materials — cobalt, tantalum, copper, lithium — minerals essential to the electronics and arms industries. The United States has signed agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo that, in effect, trade U.S. “security” support for access to the country’s mineral resources. The DRC will not benefit economically, nor in terms of its sovereignty, and resistance to the agreement is intensifying within the country.
Most of the 17 million people in the capital, Kinshasa, living on less than the equivalent of $2 a day , aren’t considered in the agreements. Marie Olela is one of those people. By a dusty roadside, she arranges her vegetables on a small wooden table. Around her, the hum of generators drowns out conversation — a now-familiar response to chronic power outages. “Here, we live day to day,” Olela tells Truthdig. “Sometimes there’s no electricity for days on end.”
A little farther down the road, Jean-Claude Mpongo, a motorcycle taxi driver, is waiting for customers. “Congo is rich — everyone says so,” Mpongo says. “But as for us, we don’t see any of that wealth. Roads are bad, work is scarce and life keeps getting more expensive.”
Formal employment contracts are rare, so nearly 90% of income comes from the informal economy. Youth unemployment is massive, with more than 60% of young job seekers facing long-term unemployment. For many people, looking for work has itself become a full-time job. Life in the DRC is even harder outside the capital. The eastern provinces contain strategic minerals that include the “three Ts” — tungsten, tantalum and tin — as well as copper and gold. Armed groups have been fighting for over three decades for control over these mining regions. In 2021, the Rwanda-backed M23 — one of more than 100 armed groups in the country — resumed an offensive in the east, causing the mass displacement of more than 1.6 million people . “Roads are bad, work is scarce and life keeps getting more expensive.” Representatives from Rwanda and the Congo met in Washington, D.C., on March 17 and 18. They agreed on concrete measures , including the progressive disengagement of Rwandan forces. This follows their initial agreement, mediated by President Donald Trump , and signed in Washington on Dec. 4, 2025. On the ground, an M23 withdrawal has indeed been observed in recent days, though Congolese people remain cautious as to its durability. Sporadic fighting has continued in parts of the eastern DRC, and armed groups have remained active there. More than 74,000 people have already been newly displaced in the DRC in 2026, bringing the total number of internally displaced persons in the country to 6.5 million. More than 76% of these displacements are due to armed attacks and clashes.
On that same day in December, Kinshasa and Washington also signed a strategic economic agreement and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on security. These provide for U.S. investments in infrastructure for mineral supply chains, grant U.S. investors first-look rights over projects and secure the U.S.’ access to minerals like cobalt and copper. The security MoU aims to help stabilize conflict-affected provinces, improve defense and intelligence capabilities and combat cross-border trafficking related to minerals.
In January, Kinshasa submitted a list of more than 25 mining assets open to investment to the U.S. Among them is Rubaya, a strategic site in North Kivu province with tantalum concentrations ranging from 20% to 40% , accounting for roughly 15% of global production . North Kivu is currently under the control of M23 rebels backed by Rwanda.
Recently, several landslides have struck the Rubaya mines. The most recent, on March 7, killed around 10 people, just three days after a landslide at the Gasasa site in Rubaya killed more than 200 . In late January this year, an estimated 400 people died in a Rubaya mine collapse after a landslide allegedly resulting from poor mining practices and lack of maintenance.
The recurrence of these tragedies exposes the extreme vulnerability of mining sites in the DRC, where hundreds of thousands of diggers work in precarious conditions on unstable hills riddled with tunnels dug without any safety standards.
A U.S. blow to DRC sovereignty Against this backdrop, the agreements with the U.S. have been poorly received by Congolese citizens.
Several lawyers have petitioned the Constitutional Court to challenge their validity. Among them, Jean-Marie Kalonji, a Kinshasa-based human rights activist with a degree in international law, denounced what he calls a direct violation of the Congolese Constitution. “This agreement violates Article 214 of our constitution,” he tells Truthdig. “This type of commitment must be approved by law, and therefore by Parliament. In some cases,” he adds, “it may even require a referendum.”
In December, the agreements with the U.S. were signed without prior consultation with the DRC’s Parliament. They were only submitted to lawmakers on March 7 — three months later.
“Consultation must happen upstream, not downstream,” Kalonji insists. “What we’re seeing here is a major agreement signed without prior debate.” Because of the agreements’ implications for national sovereignty, the lawyer went as far as to describe the rushed process as “high treason.”
He stressed that Article VI of the agreement with the U.S., which provides for joint U.S.-DRC management of mineral resources and, according to him, introduces shared control over the country’s strategic assets. Customers crowd a street market set up along a road next to railroad tracks on a rainy day in the Matete commune in Kinshasa. (Photo by Landry Ndungi) Even more concerning, he argues, is Article VI.9.b. “This provision would give a joint DRC–U.S. commission a role in overseeing the country’s fiscal, budgetary and investment policies. However, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, these matters fall under the purview of Parliament.”
For Kalonji, such arrangements would effectively strip national institutions of some of the country’s decision-making power in the sector — mineral resources — that is the backbone of its economy.
In a competitive global market, “the DRC risks losing its ability to set prices or freely choose its partners,” Kalonji says, citing clauses in the agreement with the U.S. — particularly Articles IX.1, XI.1.a, and XII.2.a — that could impose reforms in sensitive areas such as taxation and public revenue.
“National laws are designed to protect the state and its people,” he adds. “In this agreement, certain provisions appear to bypass them.”
“To have a hand in matters of taxation, budget and natural resource management,” he concludes, “is to meddle with the very core of state sovereignty.”
The collective of petitioning lawyers is now calling for the agreement to be annulled outright. “What we’re seeing here is a major agreement signed without prior debate.” Congolese activists concur with the lawyers. Congo Is Not For Sale, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations and campaigners against corruption and impunity, together with the African Coalition on Green Minerals, criticized the opacity of the process of signing of the agreements, citing a lack of public consultation and the initial release of the document in English — a detail they say represents the broader exclusion of the population in a country where French is the official language.
In their report, the two groups focused on the granting of significant tax advantages to U.S. investors, including a preferential tax regime and fiscal exemptions. To comply, the DRC commits to adapting its legal framework — including certain tax laws and potentially even the constitution — within 12 months.
The two coalitions argue that such commitments pose several risks, including a loss of sovereignty over fiscal and economic policymaking, and a possible weakening of the country’s existing legal framework. They point, in particular, to the 2018 DRC Mining Code enacted under former President Joseph Kabila, which already contains provisions governing incentives for investors, including legislation on special economic zones.
“Discretionary tax incentives could lead to revenue capture by the Congolese elite at the expense of ordinary citizens, while creating unequal treatment among mining operators involved in critical mineral supply chains,” they state.
An unequal exchange
“Are we really prepared?” Emmanuel Umpula, executive director of African Natural Resources Watch asks, questioning the DRC’s readiness to effectively adhere to a business-oriented approach. “Who in the DRC is in a position to do business or participate in this partnership? What has the country invested in this sector?”
The DRC has a shortage of highly-trained workers, with most people working informally, and in 2020, only 8% of Congolese men and 5% of women had enrolled in tertiary education. Infrastructure like electricity that businesses depend on, is weak, with only 22% of the population having access.
Umpula told Truthdig that the “cooperation” between the U.S. and the DRC pertains first and foremost to the business sector, and requires significant prior preparation of any Congolese actors expected to collaborate with U.S. investors. He emphasized the need for skills transfer, local processing of resources and transparency in implementing the agreement.
However, the U.S. is prioritizing its control over Congolese minerals over any local needs, as a global fight for access to technology, weapons and energy transition minerals intensifies. “Who in the DRC is in a position to do business or participate in this partnership?” “The world economy is undergoing an energy revolution,” says, Bob Kabamba, head of the Political Science Support Unit for Africa and the Caribbean at the University of Liège. “That means an increased need for strategic reserves, particularly cobalt and copper, of which the DRC is a leading producer.”
The DRC, he tells Truthdig, holds more than 70% of global cobalt reserves and accounts for a major share of its production. China currently controls a large proportion of the extraction and processing of Congolese minerals, giving it near-monopoly power in certain value chains.
“For the United States, this dominance is a strategic issue,” Kabamba says. “Their goal is to reduce their own dependence by diversifying partners and supply routes.” The U.S.’ rivalry with China also plays out in the DRC’s and Africa’s infrastructure. There are two major corridors for exporting Central African minerals. To the east, a logistical route links mining zones to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, historically used for exports to Asia, particularly China. To the west, the U.S. is backing the development of another route: the Lobito Corridor through Angola, aimed at redirecting part of the mineral flow towards the Atlantic.
However, this U.S.-backed western corridor remains incomplete, especially within Congolese territory, requiring further investment and regional coordination.
Further, within these supply chains, the role of the DRC will continue to be limited to producing raw materials. “Minerals are extracted locally but processed elsewhere. It’s those processing countries that capture the added value,” Kabamba says, describing the whole system as “global capitalist extractivism.” With such a limited role, the DRC mainly derives fiscal revenue from the extraction of its resources, and doesn’t benefit from the rest of the industrial value chain. “As long as processing doesn’t happen locally, it’s difficult to speak of full economic development. We remain in a system of unequal exchange,” Kabamba says.
The 2018 Congolese Mining Code requires mining companies to allocate a miniscule 0.3% of their revenue to community development projects, and local populations in practice are seeing few to no benefits . “We remain in a system of unequal exchange.” The unequal relationship between the DRC and the U.S. and China is reflected all the way through to working conditions and the nation’s standard of living. An estimated 35,000 children work in small-scale artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC, washing, sorting and digging minerals among roughly 255,000 artisanal miners . Mine workers are exposed to respiratory diseases, accidents, injuries and inhumane conditions — nine-hour workdays pay a median daily income of $3.28 ($3.52 for men, $1.84 for women).
Mining in the DRC is also tied to security and safety challenges. Various regional mechanisms have been established to attempt to sever the link between minerals and conflicts, including traceability and certification systems. Among them, the 2009 International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, organized by the United Nations and the African Union, aimed to regulate mining so it would not finance armed groups — but in practice, these mechanisms struggle to function effectively.
“In a context of weak state capacity and corruption,” Kabamba says, “it’s difficult to guarantee reliable certification. The state does not always have the means to effectively control mining networks.”
Kabamba cautioned against the notion that economic agreements and U.S. involvement alone can guarantee “security” or stabilize the region. The eastern DRC has been plagued by conflict for more than 30 years. Since 1996, violence there has claimed an estimated 6 million lives .
“The conflicts are not only about minerals,” Kabamba says. “They are also rooted in issues of land and real estate, community and politics. As long as these root causes are not addressed, these agreements will not bring lasting stability — particularly to relations between the DRC and Rwanda.”
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