This is hardly the first time the president has taken credit for finishing conflicts around the world. Global observers now worry that, as Trump’s claims grow louder, these so-called ceasefires are fragile and are unable to create lasting peace
US President Donald Trump has claimed that he stopped eight wars and that he used trade and tariffs to make the parties reach a ceasefire.
However, this is hardly the first time the president has taken credit for finishing conflicts around the world.
Global observers now worry that, as Trump’s claims grow louder, these so-called ceasefires are fragile and are unable to create lasting peace.
VIDEO | Washington: US President Donald Trump (@POTUS) says, “I settled eight wars and numerous of them was because of trade and because of tariffs.”#USNews #USTariffs
(Source: Third Party)
(Full video available on PTI Videos – https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/q7EKhAXhKV
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 12, 2025
Are Trump’s ceasefires really effective?
Foreign policy analyst Arthur Boutellis noted in a recent essay for IPI Global Observatory, the online publication of the International Peace Institute (IPI), that a fundamental gap exists between dealmaking and peacemaking. He added that Trump’s approach is “inherently transactional, zero-sum and contractual,” a model he argued is ill-suited to the complex, relationship-building work essential for genuine conflict resolution.
Just days after the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda signed the “Washington Accords” on December 4, intended to bring an end to decades of conflict, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi accused Kigali of violating the deal almost immediately.
Tshisekedi claimed that Rwanda is “already violating its commitments,” asserting that Rwandan forces fired heavy weapons into Congolese territory the day after the agreement was signed. Meanwhile, despite an earlier US-brokered truce, the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia has flared up again with renewed violence.
Trump’s claim about India-Pak
Meanwhile, in the case of the tensions between India and Pakistan in May, Trump similarly said that he settled the conflict between the two neighbours via tariffs. Last month, Potus said that he told the two nuclear-armed neighbours that they “can go at it, but I’m putting a
350 per cent tariff on each country. No more trade with the United States.”
Claiming that both India and Pakistan urged him not to impose tariffs, Trump said that he told them, “I’m going to do it. Come back to me and I’ll take it down. But I’m not going to have you guys shooting nuclear weapons at each other, killing millions of people and having the nuclear dust floating over Los Angeles. I’m not going to do it’.”
India has consistently rejected Trump’s assertions, with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar saying, “I can tell you that I was in the room when Vice President Vance spoke to Prime Minister Modi on the night of May 9, saying that the Pakistanis would launch a very massive assault on India…We did not accept certain things, and the Prime Minister was impervious to what the Pakistanis were threatening to do.”
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