From left: US President Donald Trump, President of Rwanda Paul Kagame and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Felix Tshisekedi hold a signed document during a signing ceremony at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, US, December 4, 2025.
A collective sigh of relief greeted the signing of the long-awaited peace deal between Presidents Felix Tshisekedi of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Paul Kagame of Rwanda under the chaperone of President Donald Trump on December 4.
But the palpable tension between the two Great Lakes leaders left a lot to be desired. Tshisekedi and Kagame shook hands with Trump separately, and barely looked at each other in the 60-minute ceremony, signalling the lingering personal and national tensions rooted in the ongoing war in eastern DRC.
