WASHINGTON — Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Breitbart News exclusively on Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump “absolutely… deserves the Nobel Peace Prize” for his work to help end the bloody 30-year conflict in the agreement Trump and his administration secured between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“This conflict in eastern DRC is one of the longest conflicts on the continent — 30 years,” Nduhungirehe told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview at Rwanda’s embassy to the United States on Saturday afternoon. “We have had a genocidal movement that has been destabilizing our country during this whole period. Anyone, including President Trump, who would help sizably to bring this conflict to an end deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Absolutely.”
Rwanda is hardly alone in believing Trump should finally get the historic award. Pakistan formally pushed for Trump to get it as well after Trump’s work in negotiating the end to hostilities between Pakistan and India, and many others have pushed for it as well. In fact, several members of Congress have formally introduced resolutions supporting Trump for the prize, but hearing this from parties to peace agreements that Trump has negotiated like this one in Africa makes an overwhelmingly compelling case that he should get the award.
Nduhungirehe’s interview with Breitbart News came at the Rwandan embassy to the United States in downtown Washington DC less than 24 hours after he signed a peace agreement at the U.S. State Department on Friday with the DRC’s foreign minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner. Secretary of State Marco Rubio presided over and witnessed the signing of the accord. They later joined Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office for an hourlong press event to celebrate the signing, at which Trump signed letters formally inviting the presidents of both countries to the United States for a summit at which further economic cooperation deals are expected to be signed. Rwandan President Paul Kagame and DRC President Félix Tshisekedi are expected to join Trump at the White House soon, perhaps in July, at a to-be-announced date for the broader ceremony.
Nduhungirehe told Breitbart News that Kagame is looking forward to the event, and said that Trump’s “personal commitment” to success in this deal is critical to its importance.
“Yes, President Trump signed the letters to our President, President Kagame, and the DRC President, President Tshisekedi, to come to the White House,” Nduhungirehe said. “The date is yet to be determined, but we expect that during that summit that this agreement on regional and economic integration framework will be signed which will complement the peace agreement we have already signed. So we believe this will be a step further in bringing peace to our region but also showing his personal commitment — President Donald Trump — to the peace in the Great Lakes Region, and we of course will see in the coming days if a date is set for this summit but we look forward to it. President Kagame looks forward to it.”
Nduhungirehe said the trip was his first to the Oval Office, and it was a massive moment for his entire country. He also said it was a surprise invite from the president, who upon hearing of the agreement clearly wanted to give it the biggest showcase he possibly could.
“It was my first time in the Oval Office — not my first time in the White House, but my first time in the Oval Office — and it was an honor of course to meet President Trump, which was not expected because we were expected to sign the agreement at the State Department,” Nduhungirehe said. “This shows that he is really, he has this agreement at heart. It was of course impressive to spend an hourlong press conference where we discussed of course this situation in the eastern DRC and of course this historic moment where we are living. We really appreciate his personal involvement that was demonstrated yesterday by his invitation of the two foreign ministers to come to the Oval Office to have this press conference together, and we hope that the United States and President Trump in particular will stay committed to the process and helping the parties in implementing the agreement because now is the time of implementation. By experience, we know there have been agreements that were signed in the past that were never implemented, but we know now with the leadership of President Trump we will be able to count on him to implement this agreement which has the potential to bring long-term peace and stability but also economic prosperity to the region.”
A big part of the reason why this agreement excites all the parties when previous deals had not, per Nduhungirehe, is the economic component of the deal. Both sides, as well as the United States, have actual money on the line here — and a shot to make some big investments pay off.
“It is a peace agreement that is historic because it has the potential to end, once and for all, this conflict that has been going on for 30 years,” Nduhungirehe said. “It is a deal that addresses the security concerns of Rwanda and DRC because in the past since the genocide against the Tutsis there has been that remnant since the genocide who are in this part of eastern DRC, but in the deal we have a mechanism to address that threat. It is a concept of operations to neutralize this group… which will allow Rwanda to lift our defensive measures. So there is a security component that is addressed in the deal but there is also an economic component addressed in it. We have a chapter on the original economic framework that will help the parties to make joint investments in minerals, for example, for the critical mineral value chain from mine to mine and end to end, from the mine to refining, with the support of the U.S. government and U.S. companies. There is also other investment in things like the common national parks — we have common national parks — and we have natural resources in the joint lake, Kivu Lake. We have that whole economic component of the deal, which is new obviously, because previous proposals and previous deals did not have that kind of economic component. We are hopeful, I would say cautiously optimistic, that this deal will succeed and of course we believe that we succeeded yesterday and we signed this peace agreement with the support and leadership of President Donald Trump and that the U.S. administration came with resolve but also this new approach of economic cooperation and economic integration that will really help us in sustaining peace in our region.”
Nduhungirehe told Breitbart News that it was Trump’s approach to tying peace and security to economic prosperity — as displayed through Trump’s previous diplomatic successes like the Abraham Accords in the Middle East from his first term — that worked out here.
“First, of course, there is the leadership of President Trump and his commitment. In the past, we had other mediators — we had the U.N., we had regional communities — but I would say the political and diplomatic weight of President Donald Trump and his involvement in finding a deal was instrumental to the signing yesterday,” Nduhungirehe told Breitbart News on Saturday. “But of course there is also this economic component, this chapter on an economic regional framework, which is also important in helping us striking the deal. But it is also the comprehensive approach because previous deals didn’t integrate this dialogue between the government of Congo and this group of M23 which is a Congolese movement of Rwandan culture and language, a community that was marginalized for many years. There is also the Doha talks, talks mediated by Qatar, and we hope and we actually have committed in the Washington peace agreement to support the Doha talks so they reach an agreement that will complement the Washington agreement. So we have the Washington agreement, and we have the Doha peace agreement that we hope we will reach very soon that will firm this broad agreement that we hope will bring sustainable peace in the region.”
In addition to Trump, Nduhungirehe credited Rubio and also senior adviser Massad Boulos — Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law — for their involvement in helping these talks progress all year.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio was personally involved in this deal,” Nduhungirehe said. “We had signed at the end of April, the 25th of April, a declaration of principles which was a preliminary agreement in his presence. There was also the support of his whole team — there was Special Adviser Massad Boulos, who was also involved in finding a deal or trying to find a compromise that was committed to in this peace agreement. The whole team at the Department of State helped us in striking this deal.”
At the Oval Office press event on this matter, Vance made the case that the people of the United States will massively benefit economically from this agreement as well. Nduhungirehe agreed with the vice president and said that U.S. companies and investors will boom in the region when it comes to mining and refining of critical minerals with the newfound security and stability from the peace agreement.
“Exactly — this region is a rich region which can attract U.S. investment and U.S. companies, but for that of course peace and stability is important,” Nduhungirehe said when Breitbart News asked about Vance’s comments on the matter. “Once we have reached this peace and stability, the U.S. companies together with the two countries will work on the joint investments which already exist but will be amplified to benefit U.S. companies and the U.S. government.”
Nduhungirehe explained that the region in Africa — which is called the Great Lakes Region because of the vast freshwater lakes that make up a quarter of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water and are home to some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world — has lots of critical minerals, particularly metals vital to the tech sectors.
“This Great Lakes Region is a very rich region with cross-border trade but also natural wealth including the critical minerals on both sides of the border,” Nduhungirehe said. “The fact that we will now beyond addressing our security concerns begin working on the framework of addressing mineral supply chains and working on the value chain of those critical minerals between the two countries — between DRC and Rwanda — but also with the support of the U.S. government and the support of U.S. companies will actually be a long-term incentive to bring peace but also to bring prosperity in the region. We believe that this new approach of bringing these incentives to the parties is critical and Rwanda will play its part to ensure this economic component of the deal really is implemented to the benefit of the peoples of the two countries.”
Specifically, he said that there are what people in the region call “the three T’s” or a rich abundance of tin, tungsten, and tantalum — metals that often go into production of critical electronics.
“For the two regions, there is what we call the three T’s — tin, tantalum, and tungsten — which are usually used in electronics,” Nduhungirehe said. “These electronics are critical which is why these are called critical minerals. So they are really important for modern technology and of course because of the conflict in eastern DRC there was risk in investment in that sector and generally in the Great Lakes Region but with peace and stability and with cooperation between the two countries and with the U.S. and U.S. companies I think this will help us, really, in giving value to those critical minerals to the benefit of the people of the region, to the benefit of U.S. companies, and to the benefit of the end users of those minerals.”
