Why Trump's peacekeeping bids are doomed to failure

The US president claims to have resolved several disputes but experts tell Alex Croft his deals are inherently unstable

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Donald Trump’s claim to have ended eight wars appears to be unravelling as a result of peace deals that “press pause” on the fighting and fail to deal with the root causes of each conflict, experts have said.

The US president, who was awarded the widely-criticised Fifa Peace Prize last week, has persistently boasted about ending the conflicts during his two terms as president.

He listed peace agreements between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.

But a deeper analysis of these disputes, as well as others that Mr Trump has sought to halt, casts doubt over his claim to be the president of peace.

Cambodia and Thailand have resumed clashes at the border, Kosovo and Serbia are struggling to implement peace deals, and Israeli attacks continue in Lebanon and Gaza. Mr Trump has also failed to stop the war in Ukraine - a conflict he once promised to end “in 24 hours”.

Dr Melanie Garson, an associate professor of political science at University College London (UCL), says that while Mr Trump should be credited for pushing for these agreements, the deals mediated by his administration are “prone to failure”. “Without the clear pathways, guarantees and oversight of the next steps, it leaves huge gaps in the system. Basically, what you’ve done is press the pause button, and not the stop button.”

The “low quality” of these deals owes to Mr Trump’s reluctance to surround himself with “real experts” who would challenge his authority as the “master deal maker”, says Dr Jonathan Monten, a US foreign policy expert at UCL.