On Sunday, October 26, 2025, President Donald Trump stood at the center of a high-profile ceasefire ceremony in Malaysia, flanked by the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia as they signed a long-awaited agreement to halt border hostilities. The event, which drew international attention, was quickly seized upon by Trump as evidence of his administration’s peace-making prowess. "This is one of eight wars that my administration has ended in just eight months. We're averaging one a month," Trump declared, beaming before a bank of cameras. "It was unprecedented and would never happen again."
Trump’s claim, bold as ever, was meant to underscore a core campaign message: that he, unlike any U.S. president before him, is a global peacemaker. He went on, "They start wars, they don't solve them," referring to his predecessors, and insisted that no other U.S. president had managed to solve a war. According to Newsweek, Trump’s statements were met with skepticism from analysts and historians alike, many of whom pointed out that his claims were, at best, exaggerated and, at worst, misleading.
So, what’s the truth behind Trump’s assertion of ending eight wars in as many months? The president’s list of conflicts includes Israel-Hamas, Israel-Iran, Egypt-Ethiopia, India-Pakistan, Serbia-Kosovo, Rwanda-Democratic Republic of the Congo, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and, most recently, Cambodia-Thailand. But as fact-checkers and international experts have noted, the reality is considerably more nuanced.
Take the Israel-Hamas conflict, for example. Trump has touted the recent truce and hostage exchange as a diplomatic breakthrough, claiming he "ended" the war. Yet, as Newsweek reports, the ceasefire is fragile and leaves major issues unresolved, including the future role of Hamas, disarmament, and the political fate of Gaza. While fighting has paused and limited humanitarian aid has trickled in, few would describe the situation as a comprehensive peace settlement.
Similarly, Trump’s intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict—after Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and subsequent U.S. airstrikes—did bring about a ceasefire. According to international analysts, his involvement helped halt a dangerous escalation. Still, tensions between the two countries remain high, and the region sits on a knife’s edge. Evelyn Farkas, executive director at Arizona State University’s McCain Institute, acknowledged, "There’s always a chance it could flare up again if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program, but nonetheless, they were engaged in a hot war with one another...And it didn’t have any real end in sight before President Trump got involved and gave them an ultimatum."
Yet, not every conflict on Trump’s list fits the mold of a traditional war. For Egypt and Ethiopia, the dispute has centered on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—a source of tension, yes, but not outright warfare. Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, was blunt: "It would be a gross overstatement to say that these countries are at war...I mean, they’re just not." The diplomatic wrangling continues, but no peace deal has been signed, and the situation remains unresolved.
In South Asia, renewed violence in Kashmir last year reignited tensions between India and Pakistan. Trump claimed credit for helping mediate the ceasefire—an assertion Pakistan openly praised, while India denied any American involvement. Farkas again provided a measured assessment: "I think that President Trump played a constructive role from all accounts, but it may not have been decisive. And again, I’m not sure whether you would define that as a full-blown war." The crisis de-escalated, but the underlying conflict persists.
Elsewhere, the Trump administration has pointed to progress in the Balkans and central Africa. While Serbia and Kosovo have not been at war during Trump’s second term, economic normalization agreements—brokered during his first term—have helped ease tensions. In the case of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Trump’s efforts nudged the countries toward peace, but violence continues in eastern Congo, with rebel groups like M23 still active and ceasefires often breaking down.
Perhaps the most concrete diplomatic achievement of late came in August 2025, when Trump hosted Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders at the White House. The resulting agreement reopened transport routes and set the stage for a possible peace treaty over Nagorno-Karabakh, though final ratification remains pending. Both sides have cautiously embraced normalization, but decades of distrust linger.
The Cambodia-Thailand border conflict, which brought Trump to Malaysia this week, offers another case study. After a brief but bloody summer of border skirmishes left several soldiers wounded, Trump pressured both sides to accept a ceasefire. According to Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst at the University of Michigan, "President Trump’s decision to condition a successful conclusion to these talks on a ceasefire likely played a significant role in ensuring that both sides came to the negotiating table when they did." Malaysia’s mediation was crucial, but Trump’s economic leverage—tying future U.S. trade deals to peace—helped restore calm.
Despite these efforts, many experts caution that the agreements are fragile and provisional. Violence continues in several regions, and negotiations have stalled or broken down entirely in others. As Newsweek notes, the Trump administration’s role has often been that of facilitator or pressure broker, rather than peacemaker in the traditional sense.
Historians are quick to point out that Trump is not the first U.S. president to help end wars or broker peace. Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for ending the Russo-Japanese War. Dwight D. Eisenhower oversaw the end of the Korean War. Jimmy Carter brokered the historic Egypt-Israel peace agreement. Bill Clinton played a pivotal role in ending the Bosnian War. Barack Obama, too, is credited with overseeing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, ending the combat mission there.
So, why does Trump’s narrative matter? As he seeks to position himself as a global statesman—and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize contender—these claims will shape how voters and the international community assess his record. For some, Trump’s willingness to take bold, sometimes unconventional steps is a welcome break from the status quo. For others, his tendency to exaggerate or oversimplify complex, unresolved conflicts is cause for concern.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. The world remains a volatile place, and the peace agreements celebrated today could unravel tomorrow. As the ink dries on the Cambodia-Thailand ceasefire, the international community watches closely, mindful that the path from truce to lasting peace is rarely straight—or certain.
