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President Donald Trump is leaning into his reputation as an international dealmaker. On Monday, he said he has already ended six wars as he begins his second term. Trump spoke at a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, and he vowed to make strides on the war in Ukraine.

“I’ve done six wars — I’ve ended six wars,” Trump said. “Look, India-Pakistan, we’re talking about big places. You just take a look at some of these wars. You go to Africa and take a look at them.”

President of Peace’

In recent weeks, the White House has trumpeted Trump’s track record with statements and a list of alleged accomplishments across six global hot spots: Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Thailand, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo. Trump officials also noted the Abraham Accords, the Israel-Arab normalizations of his first term.

Are Trump’s Claims for Peace Fragile Deals or Real Achievements?

Some analysts say that while he has engineered several cease-fires, he often repackages them as if they are significant diplomatic breakthroughs. In the case of Israel and Iran, the two countries had a truce at the end of a 12-day war. Tehran’s nuclear program remains a major source of friction between the two.

Trump’s first-term efforts to broker peace also had their limits. Peace between Israel and Hamas fell apart, and his one-on-one summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un yielded no deals. Trump gave Kim lavish attention, but the North Korean leader left the talks with an expanded nuclear arsenal.

Symbolic Breakthroughs

Despite setbacks, Trump has been able to notch a few symbolic wins. Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a White House declaration last week agreeing to “recognize and respect” the current borders and commit to resolving future issues peacefully. The U.S. was also able to secure a transportation corridor between the two countries, with the “Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity” proudly emblazoned on it. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said the deal was “a miracle,” although analysts say the most complicated territorial disputes remain to be resolved.

Peacemaking by Economic Coercion

Trump’s work in Southeast Asia shows how he has employed U.S. economic leverage to halt violence. In 2017, he threatened to suspend trade deals with Cambodia and Thailand if they did not stop a monthslong border war that killed 38 people. The final deal was brokered by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet still thanked Trump and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary statesmanship.”

In May, Trump similarly broke up a clash between India and Pakistan at their shared border. Pakistan has welcomed the intervention, while India has played down the importance of Washington’s role. The border war in Kashmir remains at a fragile stalemate, with tensions between the two nuclear powers prone to erupt at any moment.

The president also takes credit for helping bring peace between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2022, the neighbors signed a deal that included formal recognition of borders and a commitment to disarm their militias. M23, a rebel group in eastern Congo, rejected the agreement, which analysts say casts doubt on whether the accord will stick. Experts also say the U.S. is playing a larger role in a strategic competition with China over mineral resources in the region.

On the longer list of conflicts, Trump claims credit for a longstanding standoff between Egypt and Ethiopia over a giant dam on the Nile River. Trump has advocated for the two sides to compromise, but no binding agreement has been reached. The administration also touts normalization measures between Serbia and Kosovo, though those date back to Trump’s first term and are actually recent. In that case, the two sides remain in disagreement, with the EU driving most of the recent talks.

Questions Linger Over Trump’s Diplomacy

Trump’s style — his penchant for big announcements and personal branding over detailed diplomacy — has so far had mixed results. Critics have long said his cuts to the State Department and USAID, his foreign aid agency, hobble U.S. capacity to take short-term deals and make them into sustainable peace.

At the same time, some analysts point out that Trump’s interventions have worked in certain cases. Celeste Wallander, a former assistant secretary of defense who is now at the Center for a New American Security, said the handling of India-Pakistan tensions last year was “done in a professional way, quietly, diplomatically … finding common ground between the parties.”

As Trump moves to the Ukraine war, the question is whether his approach means enduring diplomacy or a temporary pause. His record so far suggests both.