No Money, No Morals, No Problem: Inside the Shameless Reconnection of Kagame’s Rwanda and Belgium

If you ever need proof that international diplomacy is just a high-school drama populated by sociopaths, look no further than the sudden, deeply unholy reunion between President Paul Kagame’s Rwanda and Belgium.

For those keeping score, the rest of the donor world—including the US, the UK, and Europe—has finally stopped turning down the volume on their praise for Kagame. After decades of treating him like the West’s favorite darling dictator, the international community noticed the glaringly obvious elephant in the room: the relentless atrocities, crackdowns, and systematic looting of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

But just as Kagame was about to sit alone at the global lunch table, who stumbles back into his arms? Belgium. Because of course.

The timeline of this toxic romance is a comedic masterpiece, mostly because Belgium actually led the charge in rallying donor countries to cut off foreign aid to Rwanda in the first place. Brussels spearheaded the push for international penalties, acting like the moral hall monitor of Europe, which naturally triggered a domino effect among other western allies.

The fallout was swift:

• The Tantrum: Peeved by Brussels trying to block its development funding, Rwanda proactively froze its five-million-dollar Belgian aid package.

• The Breakup: Infuriated that its former colonial master was mobilizing the international community against it, Kagame pulled a classic alpha move, throwing a massive public tantrum and kicking Belgian diplomats out of Rwanda. Brussels, desperate to save face, responded in kind by expelling Rwandan diplomats.

• The Sudden Reversal: Out of absolutely nowhere, Belgium completely reversed course. After begging other nations to ostracize Kigali, Brussels suddenly forgot its own crusade and crawled right back into bed with Kagame, magically restoring diplomatic relations on a random Tuesday.

It is a match made in geopolitical purgatory. These two tiny, deeply dysfunctional states genuinely deserve each other, especially now that the big players have left the room. The United States finally took off the kid gloves and heavily sanctioned Rwanda—specifically hitting the Rwandan Defense Force and its top military commanders for driving atrocities in the DRC.

Even worse for Kagame's checkbook, the US gut-renovated its financial relationship, completely gutting its aid package from a massive two hundred and ten million dollars in twenty-twenty-five down to a measly thirteen million dollars in twenty-twenty-six. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom completely washed its hands of the regime, cutting all funding and partnerships, scrapping their multi-million-dollar migrant deportation scheme, and leaving Kigali to scream into the void of international arbitration.

With the global heavyweights checking out, the desperate reality of this reunion becomes clear.

On one side, you have Kagame's Rwanda, running a textbook autocracy while successfully gaslighting Western liberals into funding it for decades. Its moral compass is entirely missing, presumably swapped for mineral wealth plundered from the DRC. On the other side, you have Belgium, the ex-colonial master whose historical legacy in the region is a horrific, pathetic joke. Its own moral compass has been completely non-existent since the brutal rubber-harvesting days of the late nineteenth century.

Belgium’s entire colonial and post-colonial track record reads like a dark comedy where the writers forgot the jokes. This is a country that literally institutionalized the ethnic divisions in Rwanda via colonial identity cards, botched the exit, abandoned the country during its darkest hour, and now spends its time getting publicly humiliated by Kagame—only to crawl back for more. Kagame spends half his speeches reminding the world that Belgium is a microscopic, irrelevant nation that ruined his country, yet Brussels still can't wait to sign the next diplomatic treaty.

There is no principle here. There is no moral grandstanding. It is just two deeply compromised entities realizing that when the rest of the world gets tired of your baggage, you might as well get back with your toxic ex.

So let us raise a glass of Belgian beer to the happy couple. May their mutual opportunism keep them warm at night, because nobody else wants to sit next to them.