Trump’s Nobel Dreams Collide With Diplomats’ Doubts At The Un

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump bragged to the United Nations this week about his singular capacity to end some of the world’s toughest conflicts, all largely without the help of the organization or any other country.

But wars in Ukraine and Gaza are grinding on without any clear end, despite his promises to quickly end both. Meetings at the U.N. have highlighted how allied governments are pressing to maintain fragile coalitions on those wars without Washington as the convener it once was.

And Trump’s reiteration that he ended “seven wars” rang hollow at the world body, where member states made clear they’re still very much engaged in disputes the U.S. president has claimed to solve.

The feeling among many foreign diplomats gathered in Turtle Bay this week is that Trump is often more interested in declaring victory than focusing on the unsexy diplomatic slog it takes to achieve it — a problem when U.S. support is key to negotiating the end to many conflicts. For the countries actually mired in conflict, the struggle to keep his attention is existential.

Even Trump’s surprisingly full-throated backing of Ukraine on Tuesday, while very welcome, was met with a dose of skepticism by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I can't tell you that President Trump will do everything that we want or what we need. I don't know,” he told reporters.

Trump’s plan to solve the Russia-Ukraine war was to use his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to win concessions. That hasn’t happened.

“President Trump's goodwill doesn't seem to have made an impact [on Putin], which is regrettable,” Polish Deputy Prime Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview. “We cheered President Trump on his peace efforts. But unfortunately, it has not yet brought results.”

And as Trump’s push to bring an end to the Israel-Hamas war has stalled, other world leaders have banded together both to exert influence on the U.S. president and make joint stands. A number of top allies joined together in recent days to recognize a Palestinian state and French President Emmanuel Macron convened a meeting of states taking that step Monday at the U.N.

Trump and his team presented their plan for how Gaza would be governed and reconstructed once the fighting ends to a group of Arab and Muslim leaders in New York, including a promise that Israel wouldn’t annex the West Bank, a plan for an international trusteeship for Gaza of Arab and Muslim countries and an Arab-led international security force, according to a person familiar with the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss ongoing diplomatic talks. But the plan does not include proposals for how to address the immediate challenge of getting Israel and Hamas to stop fighting.

While most leaders are quick to praise Trump publicly, privately they are frustrated with the gridlock on their most important security challenges.

“The one thing Trump wants from his second term is to get the Nobel Peace Prize. He is green with envy because Obama got it. But only results count and for the moment he is taking one step forward, three steps back,” an ally of Macron said, giving the general impression inside the French government. The person was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a close partner.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has forged a close relationship with Trump but is known to be confrontational on the world stage, lamented to Fox News this week that Trump had not followed through on his promises to end those wars early in his presidency.

“Mr. Trump, you might remember … said ‘I will finish the Russia-Ukraine war.’ Did it end? It still goes on. Similarly, he said, ‘I will finish the war in Gaza.’ Did it end? No. That means once we start analyzing the issue, there are prices to pay.” Erdogan said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D.-N.H.), who was in New York meeting with world leaders on the sidelines of the General Assembly, argued Trump could be making a bigger difference with more deft diplomacy.

“We haven't seen any results, really,” Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview. “What we've seen is a failure to use some of the tools at his disposal to bring Putin to the table, to force Putin to the table, to get some agreement from [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

Trump officials are generally brushing aside the criticism from the assemblage of world leaders and diplomats.

“President Trump has done more for peace than everyone present at the U.N. combined,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “He has ended seven wars since taking office — including decadeslong conflicts that many world leaders have tried to resolve but failed. Only this president could have accomplished so much for global stability because he has effectively Made America Strong Again.”

Whatever world leaders may say, they remain dependent on the U.S., administration officials say.

“These people go out and say what they want to say, but at the end of the day when they want something done, they come — they want to come to the White House,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday in a Fox News interview.“They all come to the White House, they all want to speak to President Trump, they all want President Trump to fix it.”

At least three leaders are making a pilgrimage to the White House following their appearances at the United Nations. Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif are meeting with Trump in Washington on Thursday. Netanyahu visits Monday.

Diplomats here have accepted that the U.S. is still the most important ally to have — despite any private reservations — and many feel their meetings this week with Trump and his team have been largely positive. Their public differences haven’t interfered. Trump and his team have mostly greeted the global effort to recognize a Palestinian state with a shrug.

Trump spent only one day at the gathering here, but some of his top lieutenants have remained in New York continuing to tout what they have described as a strong peacemaking record and casting doubt on the multilateral system.

But that record is undermined not just by ongoing fighting in Ukraine and Gaza, but by the state of the other seven conflicts he claims to have ended.

Trump has scored some results, but he is also claiming victory in arenas where fighting and violence are ongoing, or in situations where no actual war exists. In some areas, he has declared victory without addressing many of the most sensitive details.

Speeches and discussions at the United Nations this week are highlighting Trump’s exaggerations.

Trump convened the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House in August where they signed a joint declaration aimed at ending four decades of conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. But it was more of an economic partnership than a full fledged peace deal. Their foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the General Assembly this week and “agreed to continue their dialogue.”

Trump also hosted the leaders of Congo and Rwanda in June at the White House, where they signed a deal that created a new security coordination plan and commitments to stop fighting. But one of the main parties to the conflict, the M23 armed group, was not a part of that meeting and violence continues to rage in eastern Congo.

Congo's president, Félix Tshisekedi, addressed the violence in his Tuesday address to the U.N. He pointed to the Trump initiative and called on Rwanda to use its influence with M23 to meet its terms. He said a “real peace” would take place only if the parties actually implement the details.

Trump has also claimed credit for averting fresh fighting between Serbia and Kosovo, though they have not had active conflict since the late 1990s. Trump told reporters in June that he prevented a new conflict from breaking out. "They were going to have a big-time war, and we stopped it. We stopped it because of trade,” he said, without providing any additional details.

In his U.N. General Assembly speech, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić referred to Kosovo as “an inseparable part of Serbia,” calling it “the main pillar of Serbia’s identity, culture and spiritual heritage.” One Kosovar news outlet described his comments as “propaganda against Kosovo.”

Many of the remaining four peace deals Trump claims are also disputed in one way or another.

Egypt and Ethiopia are not at war, but Trump says he has solved a long-running dispute over a dam in Ethiopia. There are peace efforts, but they’ve stalled, and don’t directly involve the U.S.

Trump said he helped end a 10-day nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan. India denied a U.S. role and Trump has drawn closer to Pakistan as a result and slapped tariffs on India, cratering ties with one of the U.S.’s most important allies, although Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have begun to improve things.

Trump’s diplomacy did help stop fighting between Thailand and Cambodia after Bangkok launched airstrikes on Cambodia in July and the country responded with artillery fire. He threatened to abandon trade talks with both nations if they did not stop, which worked. Malaysia was also a key mediator between the countries, however.

And Trump’s team brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear sites. But that happened only after the U.S. joined the fray and also attacked Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s leader, Masoud Pezeshkian, slammed the U.S. and Israel in his U.N. address on Wednesday and blamed their attacks for “dealing a grievous blow” to nuclear talks.

Netanyahu, who is due to address the General Assembly on Friday, frequently rails against the threat Iran poses to Israel. He’s expected to repeat the message in his speech.

The Israeli prime minister, who has continued to press the military campaign in Gaza despite the outcry from many in the West, is one of a small group of close U.S. allies who say they have nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Clea Caulcutt and Daniella Cheslow contributed to this report.