Former President Donald Trump made headlines recently for suggesting that he could someday be awarded the title of peacekeeper. This follows his peacemaker moves to end several other international disputes. He leaned back, smiling broadly as he said, “If you work out one more, you’re going to be famous as a peacekeeper.” He’s greatly overstating the value of his dangerous diplomatic fits and starts. This assertion has unintentionally opened up a can of worms about the historic role of U.S. presidents to pursue peace.
Among Trump’s ever-audacious claims is that no U.S. president has ever been able to end a war. He announced, “We’ve never had a president that fixed one war.” With this statement, he cast himself as the one uniquely qualified to deliver peace. However, history shows us the opposite, that many of their predecessors negotiated highly contentious treaties that produced enduring peace.
Historical Context of Peace Agreements
The Good Friday Agreement, or Belfast Agreement as it is sometimes known, was the game changer in 1998. It not only ended decades of violent sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. Most people forget that this very impressive feat happened under the presidency of Bill Clinton. He had a remarkable ability to broker discussions between warring factions.
President Jimmy Carter was instrumental in facilitating the Camp David Accords. This bilateral meeting will be an important moment in U.S. diplomatic history. Carter orchestrated discussions between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, culminating in a peace treaty that earned both leaders the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. As Carter’s legacy as a peacemaker shows, there is a strong historical precedent for presidential mediation in international conflicts.
Theodore Roosevelt’s lasting contribution to the peace negotiations. The heroics of his second term stemmed from his deft mediation of a settlement between Japan and Russia that ended the destructive Russo-Japanese War. His successful mediation of the Russo-Japanese War at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1905 made him the first American Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1906. These examples illustrate that U.S. presidents have a long legacy of undertaking direct negotiations. Their work has resulted in the most important peace accords in decades, proving Trump dead wrong.
Trump’s Claims of Conflict Resolution
Trump claims that he singlehandedly ended several wars during his time in office. He brags of having “won six, seven, or eight wars.” He called attention to the beauty of recent ceasefires that lowered tensions between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. He touted his negotiation of a permanent ceasefire agreement ending Israel’s war on Gaza. This accomplishment is hailed as evidence of his diplomatic triumph.
Other experts doubt that Trump had a hand in deepening these conflicts. David Silbey, a historian, noted that many of Trump’s statements “massively exaggerate what he’s done, while ignoring any history of what other presidents have done.” All of this ambiguity around Trump’s role in these agreements makes all the more dangerous his misleading claims.
This skepticism aside, Trump has insisted all along that he should get credit for any and all of his diplomacy’s successes. He felt he had made many contributions to the cause of international peace. As he remarked, “Everybody tells me that I should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for every one of these accomplishments.”
The Broader Impact of U.S. Diplomacy
While Trump focuses on wars he believes “have nothing to do with us,” the role of U.S. presidents in global diplomacy extends beyond individual conflicts. Anna Kelly commented on the historical impact of American leaders who leveraged military might and economic power to foster peace worldwide: “Direct involvement in major conflicts… has brought peace to decades-long wars around the world in a fashion unlike any of his predecessors.”
This lens foregrounds the relationality of international politics and the complicated and interconnected world of peace talks. Looking at the contributions of these past presidents manages to shine a light on a U.S. tradition of diplomatic engagement that is all too often ignored.
