U.S. President Donald Trump basked in the glow of his latest diplomatic coup during a White House Cabinet meeting on Thursday, declaring the freshly inked Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as "number eight" in a string of seven wars his administration has "settled." Just a day after announcing the first-phase agreement—freeing 20 Israeli hostages and easing Israel's Gaza footprint—Trump touted his peacemaking prowess, insisting the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which he once pegged as the "quickest" to resolve, is next on his list despite its brutal toll of 7,000 weekly casualties.
"We settled seven wars, or major conflicts, but wars. And this is number eight," Trump proclaimed, echoing his September 23 address to the 80th UN General Assembly where he bragged of ending "unendable" feuds in just seven months. Listing triumphs like the India-Pakistan truce, Israel-Iran de-escalation, and Armenia-Azerbaijan peace, Trump credited 60% to savvy trade deals. "Think of India and Pakistan. You know how I stopped that—with trade. They want to trade," he quipped at a recent American Cornerstone Institute dinner, adding he'd warned nuclear-armed rivals: "We're not going to do any trade if you're going to fight."
Trump's Gaza glow-up builds on his July White House huddle with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, where he pocketed a Nobel nomination for prior feats. The deal, hailed by Netanyahu as a "moral victory," halts two years of carnage that reshaped the Middle East, with Trump vowing it paves the way for "lasting peace" via Hamas disarmament and technocratic governance. Yet, his Ukraine fixation steals the show: "That war should never have happened. It would have never happened if I were President," he lamented, slamming Vladimir Putin as a disappointment despite their "good relationship." Trump floated energy price drops from U.S. drilling as a war-stopper, admitting Russian losses outpace Ukraine's but insisting a deal's imminent.
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The president's narrative weaves in past pushes, like his Alaska summit urging Putin to chat with Zelensky, and counters 2022's full-scale invasion—rooted in 2014's Crimea grab—with optimism. As Ukrainian incursions into Russia's Kursk region in August 2024 keep the front fluid, Trump eyes a Nobel for Ukraine as his ninth notch, musing: "I stopped seven wars. That's one war, and that's a big one."With global eyes on fragile Gaza implementation and stalled Ukraine talks, Trump's bold scorecard—Cambodia-Thailand, Serbia-Kosovo, Congo-Rwanda, Egypt-Ethiopia among them—fuels debate: master dealmaker or masterful spinner?
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