Leavitt: "The president has now ended conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia. This means President Trump has brokered on average about one peace deal… pic.twitter.com/NopEkpC8a6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2025
- Thailand/Cambodia: This is a border dispute which The New York Times notes pertains to "who can lay claim to the centuries-old Hindu temples along the border, dating back to the ancient Khmer Empire. The two nations agreed on 7/29 to a temporary cease-fire after days of cajoling and pressure from the United States, China and Malaysia. This included a phone call from President Trump suggesting trade talks between the USA and each would not resume unless the fighting, begun on 7/24, was suspended. Talks are to resume on 8/4.
- Rwanda/Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been plagued by armed conflict for over three decades. Early this year the ethnic Tutsi rebel group M23, apparently backed by Rwanda, was making advances in the DRC while sending to the rare mineral coltan it plunders. The USA in June brokered a deal with Rwanda- but not with M23- which would end the fighting but not require the rebels to withdraw from the territory it now occupies in eastern DRC. It includes an agreement in which the two nations would strive "to expand foreign trade and investment" in "critical mineral supply chains."
- India/Pakistan: After a terrorist attack on April 22, India launched air strikes against Pakistan. The latter retaliated on May 7 and an air and drone campaign continued until on May 11, Pakistan decided to halt hostilities and India agreed. The ceasefire was promoted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, though it is unclear why each side stopped and what the terms of this provisional agreement were.
- Serbia/Kosovo: There has been strife, periodically breaking out into violence, for over a quarter of a century in this area of southeastern Europe. In 2008, Kosovo, comprised almost entirely of ethnic Albanians, declared its independence from Serbia, comprised of ethnic Serbs. Serbia actively encourages civil unrest and attacks upon NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo, whose independence is not recognized by its neighbor to the north. Tensions recently flared and as noted here, "suspension of foreign aid has affected hundreds of USAID projects in the Balkans region, including organizations in Serbia and Kosovo working towards peace."
- Egypt/Ethiopia: According to The Jamestown Foundation, Egypt has a defense pact with the Somali central government (and deploys soldiers there) while Ethiopia has a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway Republic of Somaliland to acquire basing and port rights on the Red Sea. Additionally, Ethiopia is planning an "official inauguration" in September of the Grand Ethiopian Resistance Dam, which is described here as giving "Ethiopia the power to significantly curtail the water that Egypt receives" and desperately needs. Each country backs rival insurgent groups.
- Israel/Iran: A couple of weeks ago, NBC News reported "although assessments of Iran's nuclear program after the US strikes are expected to change over time,"
One of the three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran struck by
the United States last month was mostly destroyed, setting work there back
significantly. But the two others were not as badly damaged and may have been
degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in the next
several months if Iran wants it to, according to a recent U.S. assessment of
the destruction caused by the military operation, five current and former U.S.
officials familiar with the assessment told NBC News.
But the kicker is
that U.S. Central Command had developed a much more comprehensive plan to strike Iran that would have involved hitting three additional sites in an operation that would have stretched for several weeks instead of a single night, according to a current U.S. official and two former U.S. officials.
NBC's sources led to the outlet to speculate that the President rejected the more comprehensive plan perhaps because it would have led to many more casualties on both sides and/or that it would have been "at odds with his foreign policy instincts to extract the United States from conflicts abroad."
The latter is Donald Trump's method to fulfill his primary foreign policy aim: to make deals. If the President had eschewed an attack, Iran would have had little incentive to negotiate. If more sites had been targeted- successfully- there would have been little need to have Iran come to the bargaining table. Its nuclear ambitions would have been terminated, at least for a few years. Voila! Negotiations! And if successful by USA criteria, they probably would have left Iran at roughly the status as it was before President Trump withdrew the USA from the Iranian nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Still, it would have been a deal. And the President and press secretary Leavitt would have touted it as a great deal, even though Trump helped create the problem they would claim he solved.
The threat posed by Iran is at best, nearly as great as it was before the aerial onslaught by the USA. However, Secretary of State Rubio has had a positive impact on the conflicts involving Thailand, Rwanda, and India, though in each case hostilities may resume at any time. The impact of the Administration upon Serbia's feud with Kosovo may be somewhat negative. Leavitt may have added the Egypt vs. Ethiopia conflict, because, well, why not? Who's going to check?
The problem that Israel, as well as most of the Arab nations of the Mideast, has against Tehran persists. It appears that the attack against Iran was not as successful as it might have been nor did it provoke retaliation- Israel/USA: 1, Iran: 0, as we enter the third inning.
Donald Trump has fashioned himself, with assistance from the Republican Party, as The Great Dealmaker. But he does not consider it a means to an end. He views it as an end in itself and that he if he concludes enough of them, the Nobel Committee will come a-knocking and everyone finally will recognize him as king of the world.
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