A letter dated 8 February 2025 was handed over by Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi to a messenger tasked with delivering it to the highest level of US President Donald Trump's administration. At that time, the M23 rebel movement controlled the DR Congo city of Goma, continuing its territorial conquest and threatening to destabilise the central government in Kinshasa. The three-page typed letter crossed the Atlantic with the aim of setting in motion a diplomatic machine that had until then been