Fresh into his office during his second term, Donald Trump’s claim to fame was his claim of averting many wars. This self-serving myth rested on a fundamentally flawed premise. International peace or conflict typically results from a complex interplay of deterrence, alliances, diplomacy, and the independent decisions of multiple states. In fact, the Trump presidency has been nothing but peace in words and war in deeds.

Extraterritorial assassinations, abductions of a president and his spouse, coercive sanctions, tariffs, and the weaponization of legal systems are not signs of a war-averter; they are the symbols of one. An example is the assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani. Iran’s retaliation could have triggered a war but for the restraint shown by it. Earlier in the Trump presidency, tensions with North Korea escalated sharply with Trump’s threats of “fire and fury.” North Korea’s answer was test-firing hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally revoked the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement with Iran. This reckless move was largely criticized because of concerns that it would increase the long-term risk of nuclear proliferation and conflict in the Middle East. These incidents suggest that the claim of averting wars relies on political claims about a period that, while not resulting in a major war, contained several serious escalatory moments.

In his first term Donald Trump, like Arthur Balfour, gifted Netanyahu with the Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Apart from lifting sanctions on armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank, he shifted the US Embassy to Jerusalem in violation of Security Council resolutions. Come the second term, he kept on aiding and arming the Gaza genocide that has seen the murder of over 75,000 Palestinians, 22,000 of them........

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