Congolese warlords and unethical U.S. corporations will be the big winners if U.S. President Donald Trump goes ahead with a reported plan to suspend the restrictions on “conflict minerals” from Central African war zones, human-rights groups say.  The latest Trump plan would jeopardize many years of effort to identify minerals from conflict zones so that consumers aren’t inadvertently financing war and rape when they buy cellphones, laptops, jewellery and other products, the groups say... 

Mr. Trump is considering an already drafted executive order to suspend the minerals rule for two years, which would loosen the rules on the trade of tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold from Congo... Business groups, who have been lobbying against the rules and challenging them in court, will welcome the expected order...

“This is a shameless proposal which threatens to unravel years of progress in ending the trade in conflict minerals,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “The conflict minerals law is a vital way of breaking the chain between horrific human-rights abuses in Central Africa and consumer products like smartphones,” Amnesty said... Global Witness, said the suspension of the conflict minerals regulation would be “a gift to predatory armed groups seeking to profit from Congo’s minerals, as well as a gift to companies wanting to do business with the criminals and the corrupt.”

 A suspension would “significantly threaten efforts to promote conflict-free minerals and severely undermine years of work to ensure the revenue of these minerals brings lasting peace and sustainable development in the communities where they are mined,” said Joanne Lebert, executive director of Partnership Africa Canada.