The Trump/Vance administration’s foreign policy instincts are atrocious.

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It’s mindboggling that every single person in this country did not learn this lesson the first time around. The “peace deal” the first Trump administration signed with the Taliban may be the worst agreement in the history of agreements. He can blame President Biden all he wants – and without question Biden played a disastrous role in this story later on – but President Trump and President Trump alone capitulated to every single one of the Taliban’s outrageous demands … to the point where, by the end of the “negotiations,” the Taliban were giving us – the United States of America – orders, like we were their bitch.

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In Donald Trump’s illustrious tenure of being the president of the United States – somehow twice now – he has sold out our intelligence agencies in front of the entire world by siding with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, and then compared them to Nazis; shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador in the White House; told the entire U.N. assembly that their countries were “going to hell;” and berated world leaders like Volodymyr Zelensky and Cyril Ramaphosa right in the Oval Office.

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In addition to all the asinine things already mentioned across this website – from destructive trade wars to taking a wrecking ball to the European alliance and USAID to lording over the Western Hemisphere like mob bosses – the Trump/Vance administration’s authoritarian, tough guy routine has done nothing more than alienate our allies and embolden our potential adversaries, handing authoritarians around the world – whether Iranian, Chinese, Turkish, Saudi, Russian, or North Korean – almost all of America’s leverage without getting anything of consequence in return. The president himself has heaped praise on autocrats from Egypt, the Philippines, Turkey and Kazakhstan, and had full-on bromances with Viktor Orbán, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and, depending on his time of the month, Putin.

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On that note, he has flipped and flopped several times between embracing/rebuking Russia and/or Ukraine at any given time – at one point even falsely accusing Ukraine of starting the war when the whole world knows it was Putin who ruthlessly and illegally sent his troops into sovereign territory on a murderous rampage.

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As president of the United States, Donald Trump has abandoned both the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the incredibly brave men and women who risked their lives to serve alongside us in Afghanistan and has withdrawn from major international agreements like the Iranian nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Paris Climate Accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, World Health Organization, and organizations within the United Nations system including its Human Rights Council, its Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and its Relief and Works Agency.

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People in the Trump/Vance administration would argue they have scored some foreign policy victories, but we disagree.

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For example, President Trump claims that he has “ended” multiple long-running regional conflicts – or in his exact words, he has “won eight wars” – but the facts tell a different story. This is mainly because ending conflicts that have roots going back decades requires patient diplomacy, follow-through, and long-term commitment, not just flashy headlines and shameless self-congratulation.

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Although Trump says he “ended” a “war” between Egypt and Ethiopia, the two countries were never at war. Plus, their long-running dispute over Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Nile water rights remains unresolved. Previous negotiations have repeatedly stalled, including U.S.-facilitated talks during Trump’s first term. In 2026, the Trump/Vance administration renewed its efforts to mediate between Cairo and Addis Ababa, but so far those efforts have produced no agreement.

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The Donald also claims to have ended a “war” between Serbia and Kosovo, although the two have not been at war since 1999. Nor has the Trump/Vance administration made progress toward resolving their long-running dispute (Kosovo considers itself an independent country, while Serbia considers Kosovo part of Serbia). In fact, in September 2025, the United States indefinitely suspended a planned Strategic Dialogue with Kosovo, accusing its government of taking actions that increased tensions and instability.

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During Trump’s first term, his administration did broker a 2020 economic-normalization agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, but much of that agreement was never implemented. The broader normalization process has also largely stalled, and despite renewed U.S. engagement with Serbia in 2026, relations between Belgrade and Pristina remain unresolved.

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In May 2025, President Trump stuck his nose into the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan after hostilities erupted following a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Although Pakistan publicly praised Trump for his role in bringing the fighting to an end, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government emphatically rejected Trump’s repeated claims that the United States had mediated the ceasefire or that the prospect of a U.S. trade deal had persuaded the two countries to stop fighting (India maintains that the cessation of hostilities was negotiated directly between the Indian and Pakistani militaries).

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Trump’s repeated claims of credit became a significant source of friction between Washington and New Delhi and contributed to the deterioration of relations as U.S.-India trade negotiations collapsed later that summer. < Note: In February 2026, the U.S. and India reached a framework for an interim trade agreement and resumed negotiations toward a broader bilateral trade deal, but it’s still not completed. >

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In June 2025, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a U.S.-brokered peace agreement aimed at ending decades of conflict in eastern Congo… but fighting continued, and days after the two countries reaffirmed the agreement at the White House in December, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group seized the strategic city of Uvira.

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Nevertheless, in his February 24, 2026 State of the Union address, President Trump claimed he had “ended” the war between “the Congo and Rwanda.” Six days later, his own administration sanctioned the Rwandan military and four senior officers, saying thousands of Rwandan troops remained in eastern Congo actively fighting and supporting M23 in “blatant violation” of the peace agreement. Fighting continued into the summer, and although ceasefire monitors were finally deployed in August, M23 still controls substantial territory in eastern Congo and the peace process remains unresolved.

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In August 2025, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed a peace treaty at the White House, while Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration committing their countries to peace. However, the two countries had already been moving steadily toward a settlement since Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. However, more than a year later, the peace treaty itself has still not been formally signed or ratified, and several issues, including final border demarcation, remain unresolved.

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On July 28, 2025, after five days of fighting along their border, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to an unconditional ceasefire – but the talks were hosted by Malaysia (to be fair, President Trump did pressure both governments, speaking with their leaders and threatening to halt U.S. tariff negotiations unless they stopped fighting). However, the agreement began unraveling within months, and Thailand suspended parts of a subsequent peace declaration in November after several of its soldiers were injured by a landmine.

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When fighting erupted again in December, Trump claimed on December 13th that the two countries had agreed to stop, but Thai Prime Minister Charnvirakul immediately rejected that characterization and said military operations would continue. The fighting lasted another two weeks before Thailand and Cambodia signed a new ceasefire at a border checkpoint on December 27th. That ceasefire has largely held, but the underlying territorial dispute remains unresolved and tensions between the two countries remain high.

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One very positive thing the Trump/Vance administration had a hand in was helping broker an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in October 2025. The Israeli hostages coming home was amazing! But should Donald Trump and Jared Kushner be hailed as heroes of the Israeli Palestinian conflict? Not so much.

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​In fact, the war in Gaza between the State of Israel and Hamas is another example of something these guys could have possibly helped ward off years before (much like how the Iranian nuclear deal could have possibly prevented the current war).