President Donald Trump has now tied his name and political capital to one of Africa’s most intractable wars. When the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo gathered in Washington Dec. 4 to sign their latest agreement, it was Trump who presided over the ceremony and claimed the breakthrough. Whatever happens next in eastern Congo — progress or relapse — will unfold under a deal that this White House has chosen to own.
The problem is that the accord already has been in deep trouble. The Washington Peace Agreement Trump showcased is not new; it ratifies the same deal that has technically been in force since June 27. At the most generous, the new signing perhaps elevates the agreement, this time with a ceremony at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace. The June Rwanda-DRC accord, signed at the time at the State Department and celebrated in a meeting afterwards with Trump at the White House, sketched a pathway to de-escalation, regional cooperation, and relief for millions of Congolese civilians. In practice, however, it has done little to change the trajectory of the war.
The main pillars of the deal are: ending hostilities, withdrawing foreign forces, enabling the safe return of displaced people, restoring humanitarian access, reinforcing multilateral peacekeeping, advancing accountability, and demobilizing armed groups. But implementation has faltered or stalled across all those objectives. The situation in eastern DRC is deteriorating, not stabilizing. That reality is the context in which Trump’s involvement must be assessed.
A Peace Deal Already on Life Support
The June agreement followed an earlier declaration of principles that pledged respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, addressed security concerns, and envisioned regional economic integration and the return of refugees and internally displaced people. It was meant to reset relations between Rwandan leaders in their capital, Kigali, and Congolese leaders in Kinshasa, as well as requiring them to curb support to armed groups, and creating a framework for a broader settlement.
Formally, that framework has been binding since the June 27 signing. Yet core commitments — most importantly the cessation of hostilities and an end to support for non-state armed groups — remain unfulfilled. Within days of the June signing, heavy fighting resumed across North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri provinces, which have been at the heart of United Nations peacekeeping mandates for close to two decades and where more than 5 million of the country’s 6.9 million internally displaced people are sheltering. In July alone, violence left well over a hundred civilians dead in areas under the control of M23, the Rwanda-backed rebel force that is in the process of signing a parallel deal with the DRC, mediated by Qatar.
Diplomacy has not arrested the slide. In July, under the Qatari mediation, leaders of the DRC and M23 signed a Doha declaration with an “immediate” ceasefire due to go into effect no later than July 29 and a commitment to reach a comprehensive agreement by mid-August. The ceasefire collapsed within days; the deadline came and went without a durable deal. On Nov. 15, the DRC and M23 signed yet another framework for peace in Qatar. The next day, M23 seized additional territory in South Kivu.
Meanwhile, the joint security coordination mechanism envisioned in the Washington agreement has met but has been unable thus far to transform the realities on the ground. M23 continues to expand, reportedly mobilizing more than 7,000 new recruits and entrenching its de facto rule in major urban centers, including Goma and Bukavu, key economic hubs situated in the mineral-rich eastern DRC where the rebel group is appointing local leaders and building parallel administrative structures. A pillar of the broader peace arrangements meant to halt the war has instead coincided with the deepening of the conflict and its attending divisions.
A Humanitarian Crisis in Free Fall
The human cost of this failure is staggering. Displacement remains extreme. In some areas, families have been uprooted multiple times as front lines shift. Internal displacement continues to rise sharply. Since Dec. 2, more than 200,000 people have been displaced across South Kivu province alone, according to the U.N.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme projects that roughly 26.6 million people across the DRC will face crisis-level food insecurity by early 2026, with the worst conditions in the east. Recent assessments show that 3.2 million people are facing emergency levels of food insecurity — IPC Phase 4, one level above famine. Yet aid operations are being strangled. In July, Wazalendo, a coalition of Congolese-backed forces, blocked a 55-truck humanitarian convoy; days later, South Kivu authorities suspended aid deliveries to the key eastern port city Uvira, which sits on Lake Tanganyika and is a base for the DRC military. And now, days after the Dec. 4 peace signing ceremony in Washington, M23 rebels captured Uvira, a strategic victory that ensures they now control both North and South Kivu provinces. Meanwhile, Goma’s airport, a central hub for humanitarian operations, has been closed since January 2025, choking the movement of staff and supplies.
Just as needs spike, financing is collapsing. The $2.5 billion U.N. Humanitarian Response Plan for the DRC is only 22.1 percent funded. The World Food Programme has been forced to slash its caseload for lack of funding. Worse, the United States and major donor nations have cut contributions, forcing the U.N. to narrow its funding request to serve only the most needy. This will have real life consequences for people who will no longer be assisted. Deep cuts in global health resources, including from the United States, are further weakening the response. Health and protection systems are buckling under the strain: mpox, cholera, malaria, and TB are surging and vaccination campaigns face continued challenges due to misinformation, and infrastructure barriers. Survivors of sexual violence are losing access to post-rape care, protection, and psychosocial support.
Put simply, Trump has presided over a peace ceremony at a moment when humanitarian agencies are being forced to decide which communities to abandon. These are not the kinds of conditions that would support a sustainable peace, even if the deal itself were viable, which appears not to be the case.
Security Commitments Still on the Shelf
The security architecture of the deal is faring no better. The Washington Peace Agreement contains ambiguous language on the withdrawal of Rwandan Defense Force units, with no clear timelines, nor credible verification mechanism. Persistent reports of Rwandan elements supporting M23 remain unaddressed. Provisions for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration are also stalled. It is unlikely that M23 will relinquish the territory it holds, as evidenced by the fact that it continues to build parallel administrations and consolidate revenue streams. Entrenchment appears to be the order of the day.
On the multilateral side, rhetoric and resourcing are moving in opposite directions. During a June 27 U.N. Security Council debate, the United States strongly backed the central role of MONUSCO (the U.N. Peacekeeping Mission in DRC since 2010) in implementing the peace agreement. Yet subsequent U.S. budget cuts to peacekeeping will significantly weaken the mission’s ability to protect civilians, just as the need for protection is surging in the face of fighting and sexual violence.
Voices Left Out, Grievances Left Untouched
Accountability and inclusion, two core ingredients of any durable peace, are the weakest pillars of all. The agreement lacks meaningful enforcement mechanisms, including clear consequences for violations or for alleged external support to M23. Mass killings by armed groups, including M23 and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which operates in the DRC-Uganda border area, continue with little prospect of justice.
Impunity for gender-based violence remains entrenched. Estimates suggest that dozens of women and girls are raped every day in eastern DRC. Justice mechanisms are largely non-functional, and many survivors are now losing access to basic medical and psychosocial services as funding dries up.
At the same time, civil society representatives — especially women’s organizations, survivor networks, and displaced communities – have had little meaningful voice in shaping the agreements or overseeing their implementation. Women were effectively excluded from the peace process. Without transparency, local ownership, and clear avenues for accountability, this accord risks becoming yet another elite bargain negotiated over the heads of those who bear the brunt of the war.
Trump’s Test: From Ceremony to Consequences
Seen against this backdrop, this month’s signing in Washington D.C. is best understood as the beginning of the test of Trump’s endeavor, not its conclusion. By presiding over the ceremony and claiming the win, Trump has made this struggling agreement his own.
That choice can be an asset or a liability. If the Washington event is treated as a one-day image to be replayed on cable news and then forgotten, the June accord will remain aspirational and U.S. diplomacy will look performative at best. If, however, the administration is prepared to invest real political capital and diplomatic bandwidth in turning a failing implementation record around, U.S. ownership could matter.
That would require sustained engagement from the Oval Office pushing all parties to do what they have already promised to do. It would mean aligning U.S. leverage — aid, sanctions, security cooperation, diplomatic recognition — with a clear set of benchmarks tied to civilian protection and humanitarian access. And it would mean being prepared to impose costs on spoilers, even when they are longstanding security partners.
The Real Metric: Whether Civilian Lives Improve
The real test of Trump’s peace deal is straightforward and measurable: do the lives of civilians in eastern Congo improve? Pledges and communiqués matter only insofar as they move those indicators in the right direction. A peace accord that leaves civilians hungrier, more exposed, and more displaced than before is not a peace accord, it is a headline.
For this accord to become more than words on paper, Washington and its partners will have to move on several fronts at once. They must secure genuine, unimpeded humanitarian access and restore funding for food, health, and protection programs. They should reinforce — rather than quietly strip — MONUSCO’s capacity to protect civilians. And they need to put accountability for atrocities at the core of the peace process, not treat it as an afterthought.
None of this will be easy. But Trump has chosen to put his name on this deal. Unless the political will is found to turn today’s grim trajectory around, the signing will be remembered for what it risks being now: a compelling photo op for a “peace” that exists mainly on paper.
