As he touted his bona fides as the so-called “peacemaker-in-chief” during talks over Ukraine at the White House on Tuesday, Donald Trump made two big claims: that he wants peace deals instead of ceasefires, and that he has ended six wars since he became president.
But in his haste to hammer out a peace deal in Ukraine, Trump is playing fast and loose with the truth.
Trump and his administration have claimed to have helped settle the conflicts between Israel and Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia.
Yet the claim to have settled those conflicts is embellished and in some cases contradicted by continued violence in countries like DR Congo, where Rwanda-backed rebels missed a deadline to reach a peace deal in Doha on Tuesday.
In Iran, the US carried out its own strikes using bunker-buster bombs against military and nuclear facilities before strong-arming Iran to accept a ceasefire. India has denied that Trump played any role in reaching a ceasefire deal with Pakistan to end days of strikes over the disputed Kashmir territory in May. Egypt and Ethiopia have no deal to settle the root of their conflict – a Nile River dam constructed by Ethiopia that would divert water from Egypt. And Serbia has denied it had any plans to pursue a war with Kosovo, although Trump took credit for preventing one.
On the subject of ceasefires, by Trump’s own admission, he has often been seeking them in these conflicts. Now, he has sought to rewrite the record, piling pressure on Ukraine.
Trump’s declaration that he was not seeking a ceasefire in Ukraine came after meeting Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week where the Russian president initially demanded that Ukraine cede control over territory in the country’s southeast before negotiating a ceasefire.
The question is crucial to the sequencing of an eventual peace in Ukraine: Putin wants to decide which territory Russia will retain while the fighting still rages, while Kyiv has demanded the guns fall silent in a ceasefire before any decisions are made over territorial claims.
By Monday’s meetings with European leaders, Trump had said he was no longer pursuing a ceasefire.
“If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires,” Trump stated, telling Zelenskyy, “I don’t think you need a ceasefire.”
But his record speaks otherwise. On 10 May, after the outbreak of violence between India and Pakistan, Trump announced: “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence.”
On 26 July, Trump said he was calling the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia in order to call for a ceasefire after three days of border fighting. “The call with Cambodia has ended, but expect to call back regarding War stoppage and Ceasefire based on what Thailand has to say,” he wrote. “I am trying to simplify a complex situation!”
And on Israel and Iran, Trump had also written: “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.”
MSNBC, the US television news station, posted a compilation of Trump calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine in the weeks and days before his meetings with Putin and then Zelenskyy.
But Trump – looking for a quick win – has rewritten his record as he edges closer to a Putin-endorsed roadmap to ending a conflict that has proved much harder to solve than he had once thought.
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