By Andre Pienaar

Yesterday, under President Trump’s leadership, a peace agreement was signed that will not only bring much-needed stability to Africa’s largest and most resource-rich country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but will also provide long-term security for the Tutsi minority in the east of the DRC, the so-called Banyamulenge.

President Donald Trump’s second term is forcing a hard question back onto the global agenda: what should the United States do when governments fail to protect vulnerable minorities?

On Nigeria, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Trump is placing the security of vulnerable minorities at the centre of US policy in Africa. He is acting on a core norm of international law that emerged after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 – the Responsibility to Protect (R2P): when states will not protect their people from targeted violence, the rest of the world has a duty at least to speak, to apply pressure, and to act early.

President Trump does not sound like a UN diplomat, but the underlying logic is unmistakable. R2P is simple when stripped of acronyms:

1. Every state must protect its people from targeted violence, including genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and mass atrocities.
2. The international community has a responsibility to help them do so.
3. If a state cannot or will not protect its population, including its minorities, others must be prepared to respond—first with diplomacy and sanctions, and with force only as a last resort.

Trump’s approach crafts a robust and conservative R2P: strong on sovereignty, sceptical of open-ended interventions, but clear that “internal affairs” cease to be internal once hate speech, targeted killings, violence and impunity spiral out of control.

Nigeria: security for christians and rural communities

Nigeria is central to African stability and to US counter-terrorism. Yet for years, Christians, moderate Muslims and rural communities have been massacred by jihadists, criminal syndicates and armed militias.

Trump’s message to Abuja is blunt:

• Mass killings in villages and churches are not “local issues”; they are a strategic threat.
• Religious freedom and basic security are conditions for partnership with the United States.
• US training, weapons and intelligence must translate into real protection for civilians, not benefits for elites.

In practice, that means using designations, conditional security assistance and diplomatic pressure—classic R2P tools at the non-military end of the spectrum.

South Africa: minority rights as a stability test

South Africa is usually treated as a solved story after Mandela. Trump has challenged the illusion that the ANC remains the party of Mandela.

This year, three senior South African officials—a Cabinet Minister, a Police Commissioner and the Deputy Head of the Navy—each of whom dealt with different aspects of national security, have come forward to reveal the extent to which Cyril Ramaphosa and the ruling ANC have become inextricably intertwined with the organised crime syndicates that prey on the South African nation.

President Trump has now placed the security of the country’s minorities—including Afrikaner farmers and other politically disfavoured groups—onto the international agenda. In doing so, the President is prescient.

Rural safety and food security are critical to South Africa’s national security and to its stability as a young democracy.

• Extreme violent crime and hate-laden rhetoric calling for the killing of Afrikaners are early-warning signs to be taken extremely seriously, not background noise to be bemoaned.
• Property rights and equal protection under the law are core to long-term stability and investment in South Africa and globally.
• No democracy earns a free pass on targeted violence against its minorities.

You can disagree with his tone, but the principle is sound: if the international community stays silent when minorities are demonised, we should not be surprised when instability and dispossession follow.

G20 leverage: boycotting Johannesburg, resetting Miami

Trump has matched words with diplomatic leverage. When South Africa hosted the G20, he refused to attend personally and downgraded US representation, signalling that a government which treats hate rhetoric as “constitutional” and tolerates rising attacks on minorities would not enjoy “business as usual” photo opportunities with American leaders.

As host of the next G20 summit in the United States, he went further, backing the decision to exclude South Africa from the leaders’ table altogether. That move sent a clear message to Pretoria and to other capitals: membership in the premier forum of the global economy comes with basic expectations regarding the rule of law, minority rights and internal security.

When the world looked away: three warnings from history

Critics accuse Trump of “overreacting” in Nigeria and South Africa, or of being misled by disinformation. History suggests that Trump is acting on the basis of sound US intelligence and early-warning analysis—earlier than previous leaders acted elsewhere—and that is precisely the point.

Zimbabwe: demonisation, dispossession, collapse

In Zimbabwe, escalating hate rhetoric against white commercial farmers paved the way for violent farm invasions and dispossession. The world issued statements and limited sanctions, but largely let the violence run its course. When the Bush Administration passed the Zimbabwe Economic and Development Recovery Act (ZEDERA) in 2001, it was too late; the damage was done.

Result:

• A food-exporting nation became chronically food-insecure.
• Agriculture and industry imploded; hyperinflation wiped out savings.
• The poorest Zimbabweans—not just dispossessed farmers—paid the highest price.

Ignoring hate speech and lawless expropriation produced long-term economic ruin and entrenched authoritarianism.

Uganda: expelling the Indian community

In 1972, Idi Amin expelled roughly 80,000 Asians (mostly of Indian origin), using openly racist rhetoric and seizing their property. The international response focused on resettling refugees, not on deterring the ethnic purge itself.

Result:

• Uganda’s economy collapsed as experienced business owners were replaced by cronies.
• Shortages, corruption and mismanagement exploded.
• Amin was emboldened to intensify his broader campaign of terror.

When race-based dispossession is treated as a domestic quirk, economic and human costs become catastrophic.

Rwanda: the genocide that wasn’t stopped

In Rwanda, years of propaganda portraying Tutsis as “cockroaches”, combined with local massacres and arms build-ups, signalled what was coming. UN officials and NGOs warned repeatedly; major powers hesitated.

Result:

• Around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in roughly 100 days.
• The genocide helped ignite wider wars in the Great Lakes region, killing millions more.

Rwanda is the stark reminder that silence in the face of incitement is not neutrality—it is complicity by omission.

A conservative R2P: pressure before troops

Crucially, Trump’s African posture does not begin with sending in the Marines. It leans on the lower rungs of the R2P ladder:

• Diplomatic pressure and public naming of governments that fail to protect minorities.
• Targeted sanctions and visa bans on abusers and enablers.
• Conditional assistance tied to real improvements in civilian protection.
• Support for professional, accountable security forces instead of predatory ones.

This is R2P stripped of utopianism: prevention, deterrence and leverage, not nation-building.

Why it matters for US security

For the national security community, three points stand out:

1. Prevention is cheaper than rescue. Acting early with pressure and support is far less costly than dealing with refugees, regional spill-overs or late military options.
2. Unprotected minorities are a terrorism risk. Groups abandoned by their own states become easy targets for extremists and foreign meddling.
3. Credibility requires consistency. After Rwanda, “never again” means we cannot ignore warning signs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria or South Africa simply because they are politically awkward.

Learning before the next Rwanda

Zimbabwe’s collapse, Uganda’s expulsions and Rwanda’s genocide all began with dehumanising language, targeted violence and international hesitation.

Trump’s insistence on spotlighting threats to minorities in Nigeria, the DRC and South Africa shows a willingness to break that pattern—to treat hate speech and targeted violence as national-security warnings, not background noise.

You can argue about style and details. But the leadership and resolve—to act earlier rather than mourn later—are qualities the national security community should take seriously.

After Rwanda, the world promised “never again”. Trump’s message is that “never again” must mean speaking up before the killing starts, not after the graves are already full.

Andre Pienaar is an international investor in national security, a co-founder of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), Mandela’s elite law enforcement unit, and a member of the International Advisory Council of the US Institute for Peace.