How many conflicts has Donald Trump resolved?

Donald Trump has increasingly claimed, during his 2025 tenure, that he has “ended” or “resolved” a series of wars and dangerous international disputes. The precise number varies depending on the speech or interview, but the core list usually includes Gaza, Israel–Iran, Armenia–Azerbaijan, Rwanda–Democratic Republic of Congo, India–Pakistan, Cambodia–Thailand, Egypt–Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and Serbia–Kosovo. Ukraine, and occasionally the Korean peninsula, are sometimes added as cases where he asserts that peace is achievable rapidly through his personal intervention.

These claims deserve to be examined carefully, not because diplomacy should be disparaged, but because the difference between a ceasefire, a political declaration and a durable peace is not semantic. It is the difference between lives saved for a season and lives protected for a generation.

A peace that endures is not measured by a signing ceremony or a temporary lull in violence. It is measured by whether armed forces are separated, whether violations are detected and punished, and whether the dispute is displaced from the battlefield into institutions capable of containing it.

If Mr Trump’s record is examined through that lens, a consistent pattern emerges.

Gaza is often presented as the most striking example. A phased ceasefire and hostage arrangement has indeed reduced the intensity of fighting at moments, but it has not resolved the fundamental questions that caused the war. Who governs Gaza, how armed groups are disarmed, and who guarantees security along Israel’s borders remain unanswered. Accusations of violations have been constant, and even supporters of the deal acknowledge that the absence of an agreed international security presence leaves the arrangement fragile. What exists is not peace, but a pause whose duration depends on restraint rather than enforcement.

The short war between Israel and Iran in mid-2025 is even less plausibly described as resolved. Hostilities ended through de-escalation, not settlement. The strategic confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme and regional posture remains intact, and both sides continue to signal readiness to strike again if deterrence fails. This was not a peace agreement in any meaningful sense. It was a return to a familiar equilibrium of threat and counter-threat.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have signed declarations expressing an intention to pursue peaceful relations, but these fall well short of a binding peace treaty. There is news today that the first hydrocarbon transfers have taken place from Azerbaijan to Armenia, which is certainly progress. Nevertheless key issues, including borders, security guarantees and the status of displaced populations, remain unresolved. Declarations are diplomatically useful, but they do not demilitarise front lines or prevent renewed coercion. The risk here is not immediate large-scale war, but a permanently armed frontier where incidents are inevitable and escalation always possible.

The case of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo illustrates the problem more starkly. A US-brokered agreement was signed, yet implementation has been minimal and fighting in eastern Congo has continued. After the agreement was signed, M23 rebels backed by Rwanda continued to occupy the Congolese city of Uvira, which is further south than the main settlements they had previously occupied. Armed groups remain active, proxies are employed and each side accuses the other of bad faith. The agreement exists on paper, but the war persists on the ground. This is precisely the scenario in which the absence of a robust peacekeeping or enforcement mechanism renders diplomacy hollow.

India and Pakistan did agree to a ceasefire following a brief but dangerous escalation. That ceasefire has largely held, but it did not address the underlying dispute over Kashmir, nor the doctrines and domestic pressures that drive escalation between two nuclear-armed states. This was crisis management, not conflict resolution. To describe it as a settled peace is to misunderstand both the conflict and the nature of what was achieved.

Cambodia and Thailand provide an even clearer example of fragility. A ceasefire was announced, only for fighting to resume shortly thereafter, including air strikes and large-scale displacement. Where two armies confront each other along a disputed border, a ceasefire sustained only by goodwill is an invitation to testing and provocation. Without monitors, verification or consequences, escalation becomes a rational choice rather than an aberration.

The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is often cited as a war prevented or ended, but this is largely a matter of rhetoric. The dispute has never escalated into open warfare, and no peace treaty has been signed. It remains unresolved, managed through diplomacy and pressure rather than settled through binding agreement. Preventing war is an achievement, but it is not the same thing as ending one.

Serbia and Kosovo are sometimes presented as another success, based largely on economic normalisation agreements concluded during Mr Trump’s first term. Yet the core political conflict remains unresolved. There is still no peace treaty, sovereignty remains contested and North Kosovo remains a legal black hole, occupied by pro-Serbian forces. Tensions periodically flare. Economic measures can reduce friction, but they do not substitute for political settlement or security guarantees.

It is worth noting that Mr Trump’s most durable diplomatic legacy from his first term, the Abraham Accords, operates on a different logic altogether. These agreements normalised relations between Israel and several Arab states that were not actively fighting one another at the time. They endure because they align strategic interests, not because they ended wars along active front lines. Their relative durability does not support the claim that battlefield conflicts can be resolved through signatures alone.

Across these cases, a common theme is evident. Where violence is ongoing, or where armed forces remain in close proximity, agreements that lack enforcement mechanisms decay rapidly. Ceasefires collapse, declarations are ignored and fighting resumes under a new diplomatic label.

Peacekeeping forces exist for a reason. At their most effective, they separate forces physically, verify compliance and create political space in which compromise can survive domestic pressure. They turn peace from an aspiration into a managed condition. Where they are absent, the burden of restraint falls entirely on the parties least inclined to exercise it.

Mr Trump’s approach to peace has tended to emphasise the announcement rather than the architecture. The result is a series of agreements that look impressive in press releases but struggle to survive contact with reality. Where a peace requires an international presence to hold it in place, that absence is not incidental. It is decisive.

This has direct implications for Ukraine. Ukraine is not a symbolic dispute or a frozen conflict. She is the site of industrial warfare, fought with artillery, drones, mines and entrenched armies. Any agreement that leaves those forces in place, facing one another without separation or verification, will not end the war. It will merely rename it.

Both sides would have incentives to sign such an agreement. Signatures bring diplomatic credit, relieve pressure and create space to rearm. Both sides would also have incentives to continue fighting, because battlefield realities shape future negotiations and because neither side will trust the other to demobilise unilaterally.

Without a peacekeeping force, or an equivalent enforcement mechanism, violations will be deniable, retaliation will be politically unavoidable and the cycle of violence will resume under the guise of a broken peace.

The lesson from the conflicts Mr Trump claims to have resolved is not that peace is impossible, but that peace without enforcement is ephemeral. Where there is a live front line, peace requires bodies as well as words. In their absence, the parties may sign a piece of paper, but they will do so with one hand while continuing to fight with the other. That is a particular risk in the context of the current Ukraine-Russia negotiations, mediated by the United States. It is eminently possible that the sides sign an agreement but continue to fight. That is why Europe is pushing so hard for a stabilisation or implementation force of European troops present in Ukraine to be part of any peace agreement.