Did Trump really solve 8 wars?

The US president says he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize after resolving eight conflicts since taking office last year. Many of these crises are still active.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, says he should receive the Nobel Peace Prize after intervening in eight conflicts since taking office in January last year. But many of the problems that led to these crises remain unresolved, and clashes have broken out again in some regions, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and the border between Cambodia and Thailand.

Below is a list of some of the international conflicts in which Trump has intervened.

Armenia and Azerbaijan

Trump brought together the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Aug. 8 to sign a joint statement pledging to pursue peaceful relations between the two nations, at odds since the late 1980s.

“I met them through business,” Trump said later in a radio interview. “I was negotiating with them a little bit and I asked, ‘Why are you guys arguing? And then he said, ‘I’m not going to do any trade deals if you guys keep arguing. That’s crazy.'”

The two countries had agreed to a ceasefire in 2023. In March, they announced that they had reached consensus on the text of a draft peace agreement, but the pact has not yet been signed.

The declaration later mediated by the White House falls short of a formal peace treaty, which would impose legal obligations on both parties. Open questions remain, including whether the deal would require Armenia to amend its Constitution.

Leaders struck economic deals with Washington that gave the U.S. development rights over a strategic transit corridor in southern Armenia. The Trump administration said this would allow it to increase energy exports. In documents published at the time, the corridor named after Trump. US Vice President JD Vance visited both countries in February, signing a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan and a nuclear deal with Armenia.

Cambodia and Thailand

As tensions remain between Thailand and Cambodia, despite the fragile ceasefire partially brokered by Trump.

The American president helped bring Thailand to the negotiating table after prolonged tensions with Cambodia exploded in July into a five-day military conflict — the longest between the two countries in more than a decade.

Trump contacted Thailand’s then-interim prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, two days after border clashes began. It also suspended trade agreements with both countries until the conflict ended.

The President oversaw the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the two parties, in Malaysia, in October — but which collapsed a few weeks later, leaving more than 30 dead, including military and civilians, and displacing 800,000 people, according to authorities, before a new one was signed on December 27.

Israel, Iran and Palestinian territories

Last week, Trump presided over the first meeting of his Peace Council, part of an attempt to reach an agreement to end the conflict in the Gaza Strip and promote the reconstruction of the territory.

Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas agreed, in October, on the first phase of a ceasefire and the exchange of hostages mediated by Trump. Hostilities, however, continued.

Still, the pact represented a significant step in efforts to end a two-year war in Gaza that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. Under the agreement, Hamas handed over hostages captured in the attacks that began the confrontation. Both parties, however, continue to accuse each other of violating the truce.

Fundamental issues remain unresolvedincluding the disarmament of Hamas, the post-war administration of Gaza and the composition and mandate of an international security force in the territory.

The US President is also working to expand the Abraham Accords, launched in his first term to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab countries.

Trump initially sought negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. On June 13, Israel launched an air war against Iran and pressured Trump to participate. It entered the conflict on June 22, bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. He then pressured Israel and Iran to join a ceasefire brokered by Qatar.

Trump claimed at the time that Iran’s main nuclear facilities had been “obliterated” and disputed reports that the program had merely been delayed. Now, in February, the USA and Israel, Iran and Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, are involved in the attacks.

Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo

The Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group this year held a lightning offensive and now controls more territory than ever in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Recent advances have raised fears of a regional escalation.

Under pressure from Trump, Rwanda and Congo signed a US-brokered peace agreement on June 27. The agreement was not implemented and the war is far from over.

Trump brought together leaders from Congo and Rwanda at an event in Washington on December 4, held at a peace institute that his administration began informally calling after the American president. There, they signed new documents reaffirming their commitment to Trump’s peace plan.

“We are resolving a war that has lasted decades,” Trump said during the signing of the pact. “They spent a lot of time killing each other and now they will spend a lot of time hugging each other, holding hands and taking advantage of the US economically, like every other country does,” he added.

Trump detailed that the agreement included a permanent ceasefire, the disarmament of non-state forces, the return of refugees and the accountability of those who committed atrocities. The pact also included an economic component, granting the United States preferential access to strategic minerals in the region.

But the clashes continued. In the week following the peace agreement alone, more than 500,000 people were displaced across the region, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi stated that Rwanda is violating the agreement — the same said as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rwanda denies supporting the M23, but UN experts and Congolese leaders disagree. Qatar has been mediating separate negotiations between Congo and the M23.

Meanwhile, the leader of a Congolese rebel coalition that includes the M23 said that an agreement on critical minerals, signed in December between Congo and Washington, is unconstitutional, calling its implementation into question.

The insurgency is the latest chapter in a conflict that dates back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Trump warned that there will be “very severe penalties, financial and otherwise” if the agreement is violated. The US seeks access to Congo’s vast reserves of strategic minerals as it competes with China for natural resources.

India and Pakistan

US officials feared the conflict would spiral out of control when India and Pakistan — both with nuclear weapons — clashed in May, after an attack on Indian territory that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad.

In consultations with Trump, Rubio and Vance pressed Indian and Pakistani officials to de-escalate.

One was announced on May 10, after four days of fighting. But the agreement addressed few of the issues that divide India and Pakistan, which have fought three major wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

Days after the ceasefire, Trump said he had used the threat of cutting off trade relations to secure the agreement. India disputed that North American pressure was decisive — and that trade was a factor. But…

Egypt and Ethiopia

Egypt and Ethiopia are not in armed conflict, but they have a long-running dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Cairo considers a matter of national security, fearing damage to the Nile River’s water supply.

“We are working on this issue, but it will be resolved,” Trump said in July. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt later added Egypt and Ethiopia to a list of conflicts that “the president has already resolved.”

It is not clear what Trump has done regarding the issue, although he has said he intends to bring the parties together for negotiations. In public statements, the Republican has echoed Cairo’s concerns. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed opened the dam in September despite opposition from Sudan and Egypt. The Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, promised to defend his country’s interests.

Serbia and Kosovo

Kosovo and Serbia maintain tense relations five years after agreements that Trump brokered in his first term to improve economic ties.

Without providing evidence, Trump stated, in June, that he “prevented” a war between countries in his first term and that he “will resolve it again” in his second.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, nearly a decade after NATO bombed Serb forces to stop the expulsion and murder of ethnic Albanians during the 1998-1999 war.

But Serbia continues to consider Kosovo part of its territory. The countries did not sign a peace agreement.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, is trying to expand government control over the north of the country, where around 50,000 Serbs live who do not recognize Kosovar independence.

The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, stated in July that, “in recent weeks”, Trump had prevented further escalation in the region. He gave no details, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied that there was an imminent risk.

Russia and Ukraine

Trump claimed during the 2024 election campaign that he would resolve the war in Ukraine “in one day.” So far, it has failed to end the nearly four-year conflict, which analysts say has left more than 1 million people dead or injured.

“I thought this would be one of the easiest ones,” Trump said on August 18. “It’s actually one of the hardest.”

Their positions on how to achieve peace have swung between advocating a ceasefire and declaring that an agreement could still be reached even with heavy fighting ongoing. It imposed sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies in October.

More recently, Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept an agreement to end the war — something that worries European leaders, who fear an outcome favorable to Russia and less favorable to the continent. Negotiations in recent times have shown little progress.

South Korea and North Korea

Trump said he wanted to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and make a new attempt to achieve peace. “We’re going to go back, and at some point in the not too distant future, we’re going to meet with North Korea,” Trump told reporters in October during a trip to South Korea.

Trump and Kim held three summits between 2017 and 2021, as well as exchanging letters that Trump described as “beautiful”, before the unprecedented diplomatic effort collapsed over US demands that Kim give up his nuclear arsenal.

In the following years, North Korea advanced the development of larger ballistic missiles, expanded its nuclear facilities and gained new support from neighbors. In his second term, Trump recognized that the country is a “nuclear power”.

Kim stated in September that there was no reason to avoid negotiations with Washington if US demands for denuclearization were withdrawn. Trump agreed to support South Korea’s bid to obtain a nuclear-powered submarine for its own defense.