NO NEW WARS: TRUMP'S LEGACY IN A WORLD ON FIRE

A shift in tone from confrontation to commerce defines the US President's second-term diplomacy

- BY OSAMA AL SHARIF | Special to Gulf News

For many worldwide, US President Donald Trump can be many things — sometimes simultaneously.

We already know that he's not a typical US leader. He's a populist who made populism politically fashionable in many countries. He's a staunch nationalist who upended American politics with his Make America Great Again (MAGA) grassroots revolution. And he's a peddler of hyperbole, never ready to admit that he's wrong about his remarks and quirky views of the world.

But one thing Trump is not is a warmonger. One can have a long list of misgivings about the president's agenda, his fiery attitude about mainstream media — the fake news — and his enamour of the mega-rich and mighty leaders around the world. But judging from his first term, and as he always likes to remind his rivals, America did not wage new wars under his watch.

In fact, among his achievements are the signing of the Abraham Accords and proposing a somewhat unconventional settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict, one that both sides were not ready to embrace for different reasons.

As he ran for a second term, Trump rarely ventured into foreign politics, but when he did, he said that the war on Ukraine would not have happened if he was still president, just as the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel would not have taken place. Both statements are contentious, and there is no evidence that he is right about his claims.

Washington's failures, Trump's promises