U.S. companies have already moved to secure stakes. Soon after the Washington deal was sealed, KoBold Metals — backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates — signed an exploration pact with the Congolese government, allowing the company to apply for exploration permits in Congo covering more than 1,600 square kilometers, and to develop (part) of a lithium mine in Manono. But KoBold has been tied up in international arbitration with an Australian company, AVZ, since 2023, with AVZ arguing that the U.S. deal violates an international arbitration order.

Also directly after the Washington deal, a U.S. consortium involving former military and intelligence officials moved into pole position to acquire the Chemaf copper and cobalt mine, blocking a sale to Chinese state-owned giant Zijin Mining as a result of heavy lobbying.

These moves reveal the deeper reality: Congolese minerals are more than ever a geopolitical battleground, and the U.S. is leveraging the peace process to advance its strategic interests.

Kinshasa has yet to approve the peace deal in parliament. Civil society has been shut out entirely, reinforcing the perception that the process is an elite bargain between political and military actors from which the Congolese public has been excluded. This lack of inclusivity raises a more fundamental concern: even if the ink on the agreement is fresh, the underlying drivers of the conflict remain largely untouched.