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'A lot of them start wars, but don’t solve it': Trump claims no US president ever ended a war. Is he right?

'A lot of them start wars, but don’t solve it': Trump claims no US president ever ended a war. Is he right?

Donald Trump (File) Photograph: (AFP)

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Former US president Theodore Roosevelt played the key role in mediating peace in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. He even got the Nobel Peace Prize for it in 1906.

US President Donald Trump, during a meeting in the White House with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, said that no American president has ever ended a war. He claimed he is the first and only to do so. This came after a heavy campaign by Trump and his allies for the Nobel Peace Prize for the US president. Trump has claimed he has ended multiple wars, including the India-Pakistan conflict. Although India has firmly denied any role of Trump in ending the conflict.

Trump said to the reporters, “‘Sir, if you solve one more, you’re going to be known as a peacekeeper.’ So to the best of my knowledge, we’ve never had a president that solved one war, not one war. (George W) Bush started a war (in Iraq). A lot of them start wars, but they don’t solve the wars. They don’t settle them, and especially when they’re not, when they have nothing to do with us.”

But Trump's claim is completely false. “Like a lot of Trump’s statements, it massively exaggerates what he’s done, while ignoring any history of what other presidents have done,” David Silbey, a Cornell University military historian, told Al Jazeera.

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Trump said he was focusing on wars that “have nothing to do with us”, and none of the eight wars he claims to have ended have primarily involved the US as a combatant.

Here's the truth

Former US president Theodore Roosevelt played the key role in mediating peace in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. He even got the Nobel Peace Prize for it in 1906.

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Moreover, President Jimmy Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the White House to sign the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978.

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Gulshan Parveen

Passionate about international politics and social issues, Gulshan analyses key global events, from geopolitical conflicts and US politics to international diplomacy and social mov...Read More

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