Trump counts ceasefires in wars that never stopped, or never existed.
It’s so sad. That poor, kindly man on the phone at all hours of the day and night, 79 years old and still trying to do good and bring peace and that, but as soon as he hangs up they’re right back at war again.
First it was Africa in June, when Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) signed a peace deal in Washington after decades of conflict.
Donald Trump said it would help increase trade between them and the US. However, neither side actually stopped shooting in the eastern Congo and, right now, the M23 rebels – backed by Rwanda – are conquering their third big city there, Uvira.
DRC presidential spokesperson Tina Salama has had to deny that the peace deal involved “selling out on minerals to the Americans… it’s not peace for minerals”.
That’s a sure sign that the peace deal was really about selling out on minerals to the Americans.
In July, Trump spoke his words of wisdom to the Thais and Cambodians, who immediately stopped fighting and began beating their swords into ploughshares.
But last weekend the shooting started again. But Trump’s crowning triumph was in Gaza, shattered after two years of genocidal war.
Since he forced Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire on 10 October, the Israeli forces have killed only 377 Palestinians, of whom 70 were children.
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More than a thousand Palestinians have been wounded and several Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
This is Trump’s second ceasefire in Gaza this year. The first was just one day before he took office in late January and it lasted until mid-March before Netanyahu broke it.
This one is still alive after two months, although not exactly kicking, and it will probably last until something distracts Trump seriously enough to give Netanyahu a chance to resume hostilities.
That leaves five other wars that Trump claims to have ended or prevented this year, but those claims are really dodgy.
He did tell Israel to end its war with Iran in June, but he also gave Israel the green light to attack Iran 12 days earlier, and he sent in his own American bombers to attack a probably non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons programme in the meantime.
You can’t really call that peacemaking. His claim to have stopped the brief but very dangerous war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan doesn’t hold water, either.
The Indians have denied he had anything to do with the ceasefire.
The Pakistanis thanked him for it and even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, but they are desperately in need of friends and everybody knows that flattery works with Trump.
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The other three wars he said he had stopped – Egypt-Ethiopia, Serbia-Kosovo and Armenia-Azerbaijan – were entirely imaginary. (He did host a White House signing ceremony for the latter pair of countries, but the fighting ended more than a year before Trump took office.)
So, what are we to make of this hyperactive foreign policy record? Yes, we all know that it’s driven by his obsessive pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize, but we’re not assessing motives here; we’re measuring results.
On the evidence above, he didn’t do any noticeable harm and he may even have done a bit of good here and there.
But there’s something else to consider. Trump’s biggest diplomatic push by far has been on the Russia-Ukraine war and in that context, his efforts have been entirely malign.
From the beginning, his intention has been to force Ukraine into a crippling peace with Russia, in order to open the road for ending sanctions on Russia and making lots of money.
That’s why he always insists that Ukraine cannot win and must accept a bad deal to survive at all. That’s why his cronies parrot Russian talking points, however bizarre.
It’s why he blocks direct arms sales to Kyiv and sometimes turns off the vital flow of intelligence to Ukraine. It’s why he sometimes says Ukraine started the war.
Maybe the Russians have kompromat on him, but it isn’t necessary to explain his behaviour. That’s just the kind of person he is.
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