State Department adds Trump’s name to Institute of Peace
The 41-year-old Institute of Peace has been renamed in honor of President Donald Trump, the State Department announced.
During a multilateral meeting aimed at solidifying a peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Donald Trump joked that the two African countries were “killing each other” and mispronounced their leaders’ names.
On December 4, President Trump met with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and President Felix Shisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace building in Washington, DC. The visiting Central African leaders signed a new agreement aimed at expanding economic cooperation and met to iron out details of a U.S.-brokered peace deal that the two countries agreed to in June but have not yet implemented.
In his remarks at the event, President Trump mispronounced the names of both leaders and joked that Presidents Kagame and Tshisekedi were coming together to make peace.
President Trump jokes about Rwanda, DRC leaders will soon hug and hold hands
“I think these two gentlemen were very intelligent and really liked each other, and I spent some time with them,” Trump said, before hearing laughter and reactions from the audience.
“Some people may be surprised,” Trump said. “They’ve spent a lot of time killing each other, and now they’re going to spend a lot of time hugging each other, holding hands, and exploiting the United States economically, just like other countries do.”
Trump continued, gesturing to the two leaders sitting next to him on stage.
“Look,” he said, smiling. “Look how much they love each other.”
Some in the audience laughed and clapped along with Kagame. Democratic Republic of Congo leader Tshisekedi did not laugh at the obvious joke.
The leaders of Angola, Burundi and Kenya were also present, along with representatives of Togo, Uganda, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Fighting continues between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo despite President Trump’s agreement
The two countries have been at war with each other for decades since the 1990s, including two major regional wars in 1996 and 2003 that left millions dead. In 1994, the brutal Rwandan genocide occurred, killing at least one million people. The aftermath of that incident led to the outbreak of war between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1996, according to the United Nations Education Assistance Program on Conflict.
Kagame has been Rwanda’s president since 2000 and vice president after the 1994 genocide. Tshisekedi was elected leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018 as a member of the country’s oldest and largest opposition party, founded by his father.
The agreement between the two countries, backed by President Trump, has not led to a significant reduction in fighting that flared up again earlier this year. Fighting continued in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Thursday, December 4, with a spokesperson for the Rwandan-backed rebel group M23 accusing government forces of bombing several civilian areas, Reuters reported.
As of February, more than 7,000 people had been killed and more than 450,000 people displaced in the 2025 fighting, as the M23 rebel group took control of much of eastern Congo, according to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s government. There are valuable mineral deposits in the eastern region of the country.
After the events of December 4, President Trump told a reporter who asked about the ongoing fighting that the conflict between the two countries could begin to end “very quickly.”
“It will be a great miracle,” he said. “These two gentlemen are leaders. They’re great leaders. They’re going to prove that in the months and years to come. I think you’ll see results soon. I’m confident that will happen.”
The comments came after President Trump said Somalia was “not good.”
President Trump’s comments about the deadly conflict come a week after he posted a message on social media about immigrants from Somalia, another East African country, and two days after he called Somalia a “failure” at a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting.
In his remarks to the Cabinet, President Trump was referring to reports that dozens of Somali immigrants have been indicted on fraud charges for allegedly stealing $1 billion from public programs in Minnesota.
“I don’t want them in my country,” Trump said. “There’s a reason their country isn’t good. Their country stinks.”
Contributor: Francesca Chambers for USA TODAY; Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is USA TODAY’s political reporter. She can be reached at the following address: kapalmer@usatoday.com And to X@Kathryn Purml. Sign up for her daily politics newsletter here.
