re posted from AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL
Tshisekedi inks lobbying deal to bag minerals deal with Trump
Kinshasa enlists Washington advisors to gain US support for military and diplomatic engagement as M23 escalates war in eastern Congo
President Félix Tshisekedi is offering the United States access to Congo-Kinshasa’s critical minerals as a bargaining chip to get Washington’s support to force out M23 and Rwanda from eastern Congo-Kinshasa.
Kinshasa has hired US lobbyists on a year-long contract worth US$1.4 million with a mandate to deliver ‘strategic engagements to advance defense security and critical mineral diplomacy with the United States government’, according to a filing on 20 February under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The contract is with Aaron Poynton, a US businessman who was tasked by Kinshasa last June with organising a roundtable for US and Congolese business and political leaders (Dispatches 19/6/24, Kinshasa gets a new business Poynt man).
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