Did Trump end 7 wars? What to know ahead of Nobel Peace Prize announcement

President Trump’s moment of truth as a global peacemaker will come early Friday morning when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. 

Trump has made no secret of his desire to win the prize.

“In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven ‘un-endable’ wars,” he claimed during his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month. “No president or prime minister — and for that matter, no other country — has ever done anything close to that.”

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he raised the count to eight, adding the Gaza ceasefire announced Wednesday to his list.

Here’s our brief breakdown of each of the seven conflicts, along with analysis on how much credit Trump can claim for ending the conflict.

Israel vs. Iran 

It’s fairly clear that Trump helped end a war between Israel and Iran, though conflict in the wider region rages on and Iran’s nuclear ambitions are still a long-term threat — even after U.S. strikes damaged Tehran’s capabilities.

Though Iran and Israel had carried out isolated strikes against each other over a series of months, the conflict heated up on June 13 when Israel launched strikes against Iranian military and nuclear targets, marking the first sustained state-to-state conflict between the two sides.

Trump joined Israel’s attack against Iran on June 22, striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. After Iran launched largely symbolic retaliatory attacks on the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which hosts U.S. troops, Trump called for an end to fighting. 

Two days later on June 24, Trump announced in a Truth Social post that a ceasefire had been reached, a day after he demanded Israel turn around fighter jets it had dispatched to strike Iran.

Trump is not the only party that deserves some credit for peacemaking.

While Trump exercised pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S. relied on Persian Gulf-ally Qatar to get the Iranians to a truce, according to The New York Times. 

India vs. Pakistan

India and Pakistan don’t agree on much, and that includes whether Trump deserves credit for ending fighting. But there’s no disputing that the Trump administration played some role in mediating the ceasefire talks. 

The most recent fighting between the two countries, which have been embroiled in multiple wars and countless border skirmishes, took place in May and centered on the disputed territory of Kashmir.

India conducted missile strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir following a terror attack in India-administered Kashmir that killed 26 civilians. Pakistan said 31 people were killed in India’s attacks, while Indian officials say 12 people were killed on the Indian side of the administrative line in Kashmir.

It was the most severe military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed countries in almost two decades.

The conflict came to an abrupt end on May 10 and was announced by Trump on Truth Social before either the governments of India or Pakistan could publicize the news. 

He posted that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE,” adding this was the result of “a long night of talks mediated by the United States.”

Ashley J. Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Trump administration gets “some credit” for bringing the conflict to an end because “in carrying messages from one side to the other, they played an important role for both sides to de-escalate.”

India, however, has refused to give Trump credit, contributing to tensions between the countries over trade. India says fighting ended following direct talks between the two militaries.

Pakistan, for its part, said it would nominate Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize while praising his contributions to global peace.

Democratic Republic of Congo vs. Rwanda 

Fighting centered in eastern Congo between rival militias, some of them backed by Rwanda, is still raging, despite Trump’s claims that he ended it.

The conflict stretches back to Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, which spilled over into eastern Congo. The conflict has claimed 6 million lives and is considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Qatar is mediating peace talks involving militias, while a separate Congo-Rwanda peace process mediated by the U.S. is aimed at resolving conflict in Congo and Rwanda.

“Peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still mostly a promise,” Bintou Keita, the top United Nations official for the conflict, said during a Security Council meeting last week. 

Trump is credited with pushing forward peace talks, alongside the Qatar-mediated talks. He brought together foreign ministers from Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace agreement, and both urged the president to stay engaged and help the deal succeed.

But killings and atrocities continue. The M23 rebel group is accused of being behind a July massacre of at least 319 civilians. In September, the U.N. warned that violence on the ground is completely divorced from peace talks.

“[Trump] has absolutely not ended anything at all,” said Richard Moncrieff, project director for the Great Lakes with the International Crisis Group. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Cambodia vs. Thailand

There’s little dispute that Trump played a pivotal role in ending deadly border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand, which broke out in late July and ended four days later after the president threatened to withhold trade deals if the fighting continued. 

Cambodia and Thailand agreed to an unconditional ceasefire after talks in Malaysia on July 28. Both sides have accused the other of ceasefire violations in the ensuing months, but it has remained largely in place. 

Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow in the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, said the ceasefire remains “under pressure,” with Cambodians accusing Thailand of slow-walking on finalizing a deal to ensure hostilities don’t resume. 

“So while Trump played a central role to stop the immediate fighting, his administration is not a key actor in the ongoing negotiations to sustain the ceasefire, but also to resolve the border dispute in the long run,” Yaacob said. 

The White House has reportedly said Trump is willing to attend the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia later this month, but only if he can preside over the signing of a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand while there.

Egypt vs. Ethiopia

While Egypt and Ethiopia have long argued over access to Nile River waterways, they have not engaged in armed conflict, making Trump’s claim of ending a war between the countries a real stretch. 

Egypt and Ethiopia have long been at loggerheads over Ethiopia’s construction of a massive hydroelectric dam on a Nile tributary, which began in 2011 and was completed this year. 

“I think up until this point, you would say Egypt and Ethiopia have been involved in bitter war of words,” said Moses Chrispus Okello, senior researcher on the Horn of Africa at the Institute for Security Studies. 

However, apart from claims of an Egyptian cyberattack years ago, threats have not materialized into a kinetic conflict, he said. 

Samir Bhattacharya, an associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, said Trump’s brief foray into the diplomatic conflict during his first term was not helpful and may have made things worse. 

“While he did initiate talks in 2019, mainly at the urging of Egypt’s President el-Sisi, no agreement was reached. As a matter of fact, in 2020, after a few rounds of failed negotiations, Trump suggested that Egypt might ‘blow up the dam’—a comment that alarmed Ethiopia and hardened its stance,” Bhattacharya said. 

Trump raised the dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt again in July, saying, “It is a problem but it is going to get solved.”

However, Okello said there’s nothing to negotiate. “Even if they came back on the table, what would they be doing? The dam is up; it’s a fait accompli.”

Armenia vs. Azerbaijan

Trump succeeded where various international actors, including Russia and European nations, have failed in trying to bring Armenia and Azerbaijan together for serious peace talks, although a detailed agreement remains a work in progress.   

During a meeting in Washington in August to sign a peace framework, both Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev praised the president’s efforts to normalize relations between the two former Soviet republics.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been entangled in a nearly four-decade conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, housed in the Caucasus Mountains. After Azerbaijan’s offensive and occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh on Sept. 19, 2023, more than a hundred thousand residents fled to Armenia and the breakaway government was dissolved. 

Tinatin Japaridze, an analyst at Eurasia Group and an expert on domestic and foreign policies of Georgia and Azerbaijan, said there have been “numerous skirmishes and tensions along the border” since the 2023 military offensive. 

Japaridze said the chances of an “imminent conflict” were now low, “largely because both sides are still talking.”

“What ultimately made the difference were the opportunities presented by Washington, particularly the prospect of deeper bilateral ties between the U.S. and Azerbaijan, which were hard to turn down,” Japaridze said.

Serbia vs. Kosovo

Kosovo and Serbia were not at war before Trump helped broker an economic agreement between the countries in 2020. “So there wasn’t a war for the president to end,” said Larry Haas, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

“Serbia and Kosovo have been in a state of high tension, with each side distrusting the other for quite some time now,” he added. 

Serbia, along with its allies Russia and China, does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, which it declared in 2008, while the U.S. and some European countries do. 

Tensions have soared since 2021, with Kosovo’s government turning up the heat on the four northern municipalities where the majority of the people are ethnic Serbs. In early September, the Trump administration suspended its strategic dialogue with Kosovo, saying recent statements and actions by acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti “have posed challenges to progress made over many years.” 

Trump helped broker an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo in 2020, inviting both delegations to sign a framework deal to normalize economic relations and increase bilateral trade. Pristina and Belgrade have continued discussions on the details in talks facilitated by European nations.

“I think that 2020 was a good move. It was a way to give positive incentives for both sides to, you know, to avoid the temptation to go back to war, and to avoid boiling things up in a way that could be counterproductive for their economic growth,” Michael O’Hanlon, senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, told The Hill.