Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Alaska on August 15, 2025, to discuss a peace settlement for the Russo-Ukrainian War, and, in doing so, sparked widespread international debate. Specifically, the leaders’ expectation that ‘lasting peace’ would require Ukraine to hand over territory and concessions to Russia drew rightful criticism from media and politicians around the world.
This widely covered episode, however, is part of a larger focus by the Trump administration in recent months to secure the settlement of several international conflicts. On June 27, the United States brokered a ceasefire deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23. Additionally, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement, mediated by President Trump, on August 8, 2025.
In a vacuum, securing peace in these countries, where oftentimes decades-spanning conflicts have affected millions of lives, is, of course, a noble goal. Not all resolutions are created equal, though; the conditions of a peace deal are just as, if not more important than securing said peace. Crucially, the peace treaties for both of these long-running conflicts have included clauses that guarantee U.S interests in oil and rare minerals.
While Trump has boasted of his ‘ending six conflicts’, analysis of this recent strategy must move beyond simplistic explanations of this push as fuelled by his ego. The mineral and resource deals must be understood not as minor conditions, but as a key element to the U.S. strategy.
What is ‘Neocolonialism’?
The extraction of key minerals and resources in the Global South by companies and countries from the Global North has historically been described as ‘neocolonial’. Ghanaian revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, who was one of the main theorists of this concept of ‘neocolonialism’, defined it as a process in which a given country possesses all the formal aspects of independence, yet has its economy and political system heavily influenced by external parties. While less related to political policy, Trump’s recent peace deals reflect the economic aspects of neocolonialism.
This framework places key emphasis on the economic and political interests of multinational corporations in maintaining a system of profitable resource extraction. Some have argued that it is an oversimplified and overly politicized way of understanding global affairs. Nonetheless, in a study of economic relations between the Global North and the Global South, a group of researchers concluded that from 1990 to 2015, the ‘drain’ from the latter to the former amounted to $242 trillion USD.
Whether it is referred to as ‘neocolonialism’ or not, this study’s results demonstrate that a pattern of resource exploitation still exists and should be more widely acknowledged. Trump’s peace deals in Armenia and the DRC, as well as the conditions that have come with them, only further underscore the urgency of understanding this phenomenon.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Peace without Justice
The neighbouring countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia, located in the Caucasus region southwest of Russia, have engaged in conflict with one another for the better part of four decades. Although the intensity of their fighting has varied since 1988, the two nations continued to contend over control of several key territories. Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan, was populated with a majority of ethnic Armenians, yet it was incorporated into Azerbaijan by Soviet authorities over a century ago.
In 2023, Azerbaijan escalated the conflict by occupying and ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. Justice for the civilians who were killed or forced to flee by Azerbaijan has yet to be given.
Instead of addressing the root causes of the conflict—namely, any discussion of the Nagorno-Karabakh question—Trump’s ‘peace’ plan instead focused on fostering developmental cooperation between the two countries. The flagship outcome of the discussion was the ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ (TRIPP). This predominantly U.S.-funded corridor would run through the two countries and connect the Caspian Sea in the east, westward to Turkey.
While this deal will undoubtedly yield some positive benefits for both Armenia and Azerbaijan, the United States has engineered it in a way that benefits them the most. Crucially, Trump’s negotiation has come with the condition that American companies are given the ‘exclusive’ right to develop this pathway over a period of 99 years. Not only would this bring revenues from construction predominantly to its own firms rather than Armenian or Azerbaijani companies, but it would also help facilitate the export of the United States’ already significant oil investments into the region.
Ultimately, this deal demonstrates that Trump’s plan prioritizes political and economic outcomes rather than a concerted effort at peace. Aimed at reducing Russian and Iranian influence, the geopolitical importance of the region has driven American interest in further encouraging bilateral relations between Trump and other leaders. With injustice unaddressed and Karabakh Armenians still displaced, their non-inclusion in this dialogue does not give hope that this deal will provide equal benefits to all parties.
Congo’s Ceasefire: Stability for a Scramble for Resources
Conflict between the DRC and Rwanda has remained ongoing in the former’s eastern provinces for decades. While there are hundreds of militia groups operating in the region with their own objectives, both countries argue that fighting is for security and territorial purposes. The legacy of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which Hutu extremists orchestrated the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi individuals, remains a key factor that fuels Rwanda’s support for the M23; they argue that the DRC supports the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu group in the Congo who are in part comprised of individuals who took part in the genocide.
Though the political consequences of these ethnic tensions are certainly real, they alone are not the driving factor. Trump’s June ceasefire deal highlights that conflict stems from far more than ethnic animosity — the Democratic Republic of the Congo, specifically its Kivu provinces, is estimated to possess $24 trillion USD worth of key minerals used in various industries, including gold, cobalt, and coltan. The M23 has taken over several local and Chinese mining operations as part of its offensive against the Congo, using the proceeds to finance its activity.
Trump has stated that the U.S will get “a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo” as part of the ceasefire deal. Negotiations have yielded the proposed construction of a $760 million dam between the two countries, and the three parties continue to discuss further U.S investment into lithium and coltan mines in the Congo-Rwanda borderlands. These mining contracts are likely to fall into the hands of billionaire investors, including investment firm America First Global, as well as KoBold Metals, a private mining corporation that counts Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates as primary investors.
Overall, this proposal is not only neocolonial in nature, but it has already proven that its focus on ‘economic cooperation’ has been fragile at best. The peace initiative was suspended by the M23 group as of August 19th. Both the Congolese government and M23 have alleged that the other party has violated the ceasefire. With major implications for the Great Lakes region of central Africa, the visible cracks in the Trump administration’s diplomacy may only aggravate the current situation.
Neocolonial Peace Deals
Donald Trump’s administration has certainly taken a bold and transparent approach in its desire to facilitate the exploitation of foreign resources. It would be a mistake, however, to view this as a unique phenomenon. The reason that neocolonialism remains relevant is that it describes a system in which a variety of actors, both domestic and international, exploit conflict for their own gain.
Neocolonialism is a crucial framework to understand the continuation of these conflicts. Domestic leaders in these countries, eager to end the horrific violence that has displaced millions of people in both contexts, may justify their signing of peace deals at the cost of extractive concessions as a case where the ends justify the means. This rush to settle, however, does not focus on the nuanced factors fuelling each conflict. With a new element of American extractionism, the lack of justice and proper settlement will likely only ensure future instability.
The Hypocrisy of Global Narratives of Peace
Rather than criticizing the system of neocolonialism, international focus has tended toward addressing smaller-scale issues, such as conflict minerals. Christoph N. Vogel, author of Conflict Minerals Inc.: War, Profit and White Saviourism in Eastern Congo, argues that the political strategies surrounding the reduction of the use of ‘conflict minerals’ — minerals used in global supply chains that are acquired from rebel groups — have served to, “[justify] a white savior-style operation that enabled transnational capital to consolidate the control of supply chains.”
As part of this narrow focus, Global North countries have continually and rightfully pointed out that Russia, China, Turkey, and the Gulf states, among others, engage in unfair deals and pursue their own economic and political interests in Global South countries at the cost of their sovereignty.
This lens of criticism, however, is frequently not applied to its own activities. By downplaying the role that the United States or the EU plays in facilitating these conditions, this only serves to further normalize neocolonialism.
Peace Without Justice
Neocolonialism continues to have a significant impact on countries in the Global South. Rather than portray them as ‘passive victims’ in this process, however, it is crucial to note that neocolonialism highlights how local leaders are either indirectly coerced or actively willing to participate in this status quo.
In this system, domestic political elites in places like Armenia, the DRC, or elsewhere are incentivized to engage in short-term–oriented deals like Trump’s. Rather than pursuing long-term development policies, leaders are either pragmatic in their attempt to provide immediate change for their citizenry or simply motivated by their own self-interest.
What is most important is that none of the above processes help the agency of local actors who are victimized by domestic and international interests. Civil society groups in Armenia and the DRC, who largely criticized these ‘peace deals’ as peace without justice, were not consulted in these discussions. Future peace negotiations must include a diverse range of parties, particularly those without other conflicting interests that could obstruct peace.
Peace Without Neocolonialism
This pattern of obtaining extractive concessions in exchange for brokering a ‘peace’ deal must be acknowledged as a key element underpinning future U.S negotiations. After negotiating deals in the DRC and the Caucasus, the Trump administration has signalled interest in mediating conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar. As two other countries that have been negatively impacted by external influences, the road to peace in both countries must look to the examples the United States has set and come to the conclusion that it is not an altruistic partner for peace.
Above all, future peace efforts must foreground the pursuit of justice for historical wrongdoings over the U.S.’s strategy of amnesty and pragmatic compromises. Failure to acknowledge the dynamic of unequal exchange that the U.S. and other Global North countries seek to uphold will only continue to provoke conflict in the long term.
Edited by Atena Abbaspourbenis
