President Trump will host the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the White House on Thursday to advance a deal meant to end a devastating and persistent war in eastern Congo.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly boasted of his administration’s role in mediating a peace agreement between the two nations. It is part of his campaign to establish himself as a global peacemaker and a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, even as he has publicly derided Congo and other war-torn nations in Africa.
After he hosts President Felix Tshisekedi of Congo and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda at the White House, the leaders will hold a signing ceremony for the agreement’s next phase at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which the administration has renamed the “Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace.”
The president’s victory lap could prove to be premature. On Wednesday, one day before the deal was set to be signed, heavy fighting was reported near the city of Uvira and the Rwandan border.
Deadly conflict in eastern Congo has been unfolding over three decades, since the genocide in Rwanda’s civil war in 1994. Violence has surged and ebbed over the long span, and in recent years, Congolese officials have accused Rwanda of giving material aid to a powerful militia, M23, that launched attacks in Congo in 2021.
M23 holds swaths of eastern Congo and has consolidated its power there this year, creating a parallel government that controls everything from mineral supply chains to garbage collection.
The Washington deal relies on progress being made toward M23 giving up that power, something it has shown no sign of being willing to do. Peace talks in Doha between Congo and M23 have produced no consensus on issues including the return of M23-held areas to Congolese government control, the disarmament of armed groups and justice for victims, according to Critical Threats, a security think tank.
Over 400 people — nearly 300 of them civilians — were killed in the past month in clashes between M23 and the Congolese military and allied militia, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.
“There are bullets everywhere. People are not safe,” said David Cikuru, a civil society leader in the eastern South Kivu province, where fighting has recently escalated. “People are dying needlessly because there are fronts almost everywhere.”
Mr. Cikuru cast doubt on the Washington meeting spurring progress. “What exactly are they going to sign?” he said. “Are they simply being hypocritical?”
Even though Mr. Trump has claimed to end the war, a spokesman for Congo’s government acknowledged at a news conference on Wednesday that the agreement signed in June was simply a “signature.”
“The second part is the toughest,” said the spokesman, Patrick Muyaya Katembwe. “The implementation of peace.”
When the foreign ministers from Congo and Rwanda last visited the White House to sign the earlier phase of the peace agreement, Mr. Trump welcomed the leaders with a celebratory tone.
It was a sharp contrast from his typical language about African nations, and particularly Congo. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said without evidence that Congo is emptying its prisons and sending violent people to the U.S. border. And the meeting with the African leaders on Thursday will come as Mr. Trump has repeatedly unleashed xenophobic language against the Somali community in United States and Somalia.
Rwanda and Congo’s governments have taken a conciliatory approach, crediting the Trump administration for attaching an economic component to the deal.
Tina Salama, a spokeswoman for Congo’s president, also raised the possibility that the Trump administration would want to discuss a new deportation deal during the meeting.
The Trump administration has sent some non-African deportees to some African nations, a practice known as third-country deportations, in an effort to discourage immigrants illegally in the United States from staying.
While it is hoping to secure investment from American companies, Congo will not simply hand over its critical resources to the United States, Ms. Salama said.
“This peace agreement is not giving up the mineral resources of the D.R.C. to the U.S.,” Ms. Salama said through an interpreter. The Congolese officials said their top priority for the meeting at the White House was securing peace.
But as the presidents prepared to gather in Washington, some in Congo pointed out the vast gulf between the documents that officials were preparing to sign and the reality on the ground.
Prince Epenge, an opposition politician in Congo, accused his country’s president of “mocking Congolese corpses” in signing the deal, saying he was only interested in doing business with the United States.
“How can anyone expect a traumatized people, a people submerged in an ocean of blood spilled in Congo by Rwanda, to accept that a simple piece of paper be laid over their suffering?” Mr. Epenge said.
Justin Makangara contributed reporting from Kinshasa, Congo.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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