Donald Trump’s War and Peace

The President of Peace is back.

It doesn’t matter that Donald Trump is threatening to bomb ground targets in Venezuela, that he has recently “trashed” Somali immigrants, that he has warned some Democrats that they have committed “seditious behavior” and that his White House is denying allegations of a war crime.

The commander-in-chief transformed himself into a statesman this Thursday, presiding over the signing of an agreement that, according to him, will put an end to “one of the longest conflicts in the world” between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He proclaimed: “A great day for Africa, a great day for the world”.

But the event was full of ironies.

To begin with, fierce fighting continues between the M23 rebels, supported by Rwanda, and Congolese soldiers.

Furthermore, how many peace treaty signings have a warm-up track that includes the song “Live and Let Die,” which guests heard before Trump appeared?

And the ceremony took place at the former headquarters of the US Institute for Peace, which has worked to resolve global conflicts since it was created by Congress in 1984 – until it was closed and gutted by Trump himself.

“Marco, you did a fantastic job getting it ready — it’s a spectacular building,” Trump told Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Preparing the building, in this context, meant putting the name Donald J. Trump on the facade, firing employees, ending its programs and gutting the budget.

But the US Institute of Peace is not, or was not, a federal agency, and it owned and managed its own headquarters. A judge already considers that the Trump administration’s takeover of the institute, including its building and assets, is illegal. An appeal is pending.

Thursday’s ceremony epitomized the contradictions of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, which simultaneously threatens constitutional values, supports autocrats, despises allies, and destroys the global institutions and systems that have kept the peace for decades — all while wielding U.S. power to seek new peace agreements.

It also showed an administration whose main priority appears to be polishing the legacy of the president himself, who seeks recognition from a Nobel Peace Prize that, according to him, he should have won many times already.

And even as Trump spoke of peace in Washington, US forces stepped up the administration’s attacks on alleged drug trafficking boats, in a campaign that critics say is illegal. The military in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people, US Southern Command said.

The Pentagon is under bipartisan criticism over an operation against another ship in September that involved a pursuit attack that killed the surviving crew members. Democrats claim that this could constitute a war crime.

Put an end to a terrible war

The agreement between Rwanda and the DRC is intended to end a war that has spread carnage across Central Africa, involving more than 100 armed groups in a conflict with roots in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwanda accuses the DRC of protecting genocidal militias, while Congo says the Kigali government sponsors rebel groups on its territory, in part to control exploration rights for essential rare earth minerals.

The war is one of eight conflicts that Trump claims to have resolved during his presidency. In addition to the DRC and Rwanda, the US President highlights the conflicts between Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, Israel and Iran, Serbia and Kosovo, Israel and Hamas and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In some of these conflicts, for example in Gaza, Trump played a fundamental role and deserves a real victory in foreign policy. In other cases, however, there was no war, for example, between Egypt and Ethiopia, where what was at issue was a disagreement over a dam project. Some belligerents, such as India, have suggested that the US president has exaggerated his conflict resolution role.

Trump’s genuine attempts to end wars

Trump’s hyperbolic claims to be the only president to win a war have earned him widespread derision – along with his complaints about supposed injustices

It has repeatedly appeared to be trying to impose a peace that favors an aggressor – Russia – rather than the invaded party – Ukraine. On other occasions, it seems that the President ignores the fundamental historical and factual issues and simply wants a deal, any deal, that he can claim as another victory.

Still, sometimes a 40,000-foot approach can work. His willingness to overcome historical hatreds helped forge the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. His envoys Steve Witkoff and his own son-in-law Jared Kushner may have seemed naïve in their peace-through-business red carpet to ruthless Russian leader Vladimir Putin. But they did valuable detailed work in Gaza, where the ceasefire remains in place.

On Thursday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame praised Trump’s pacification technique as being “impartial” and “never taking sides.” He continued: “Trump guides us to the future, not the past, emphasizing that the peace dividend is prosperity and investment (…) President Trump’s approach is pragmatic. The process has not become an end in itself.”

Kagame has a national interest in giving Trump face. But his description is true to Trump’s public comments.

A peace prize presented on Friday in DC

But Kagame was more circumspect than Trump, saying Thursday’s deal offered the opportunity to “end this conflict once and for all.” “If this deal fails and things don’t work out as they are supposed to, the responsibility will not fall on President Trump, but on us.”

The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, was equally conditional, calling the agreement “a new path, a demanding path” to a place where peace can be more than an aspiration.

Trump was in an effusive mood, praising the guests and other regional leaders present in the room, apparently without realizing the ironies, taking into account the fact that he denigrated, in his first term, the countries on the continent that are “shit”, or his new visa bans that include a handful of other African countries.

And, as he often does, he seemed to miss the real motivations, highlighting that the agreement gives the US access to rare earth minerals at the center of the new great geological game between the US and China. Congo is one of the main suppliers of cobalt, essential for the lithium iron batteries used in smartphones, and columbite-tantalite, vital for the manufacture of laptop computers and combat aircraft.

“They spent a lot of time killing each other, and now they’re going to spend a lot of time hugging each other, holding hands and taking advantage of the United States economically, like every other country does,” Trump joked.

If the agreement lasts and saves lives, Trump will be entitled to another victory lap.

But his attempts to stage a coup d’état in Venezuela, his draconian use of armed forces in law enforcement in US cities and his attack on democracy after the 2020 elections could doom his hopes of obtaining that elusive Nobel Prize.