Donald Trump claims he has ended seven wars and that “everyone says” he should get the Nobel Peace Prize as a reward.

The US president’s push for the coveted prize goes back years, and the progression of his 20-point peace plan for Gaza comes right before the 2025 winner is announced tomorrow.

But what wars does Mr Trump claim to have ended, and what has he said about the Nobel Peace Prize?

Which seven wars does Trump claim to have ended?

Mr Trump first spoke of ending wars on 18 August, during his summit with Ukrainian and European leaders.

“I’ve done six wars, I’ve ended six wars,” he said. “If you look at the six deals I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires.”

The following day, in an interview with Fox News, he revised the number to seven wars.

It’s a claim he went on to repeat last month at the New York at the UN General Assembly, saying that no one had “ever done anything close to that”.

After his claims, the White House released the list of conflicts the president was referring to – six during his second term and one in his first. They are as follows:

Armenia and Azerbaijan

The two nations have been engaged in nearly 40 years of conflict over the disputed status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Most recently, serious fighting broke out in September 2023 when Azerbaijan seized the area, which has been home to ethnic Armenians since pre-Soviet times.

But on 8 August this year, a peace agreement between the two sides was announced at the White House, which saw both leaders nominate Mr Trump for the Nobel prize.

Of all of the Trump peace claims, this is among the most legitimate, Dr Theo Zenou, research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, tells Sky News.

“Credit where credit is due: brokering a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a genuine achievement,” he says.

Describing it as an “important symbol of progress”, he cautions that it was also largely due to “Russia’s declining influence in the region” and there remain “points of contention” between the two sides.

Thailand and Cambodia

Tensions over land along Thailand and Cambodia’s 500-mile shared border have gone on for more than a century, leading to sporadic flare-ups in fighting.

On 24 July, after Thai officials claimed Cambodian troops opened fire at one of their military bases along the border, violence broke out again, leaving 35 people dead and hundreds of thousands of people displaced across four days.

Two days in, Mr Trump posted on Truth Social: “I am calling the Acting Prime Minister of Thailand, right now, to likewise request a Ceasefire, and END to the War, which is currently raging.”

While it was Malaysia that hosted peace talks, Mr Trump threatened to pull his negotiations over potential reductions in US tariffs on Thai and Cambodian imports unless the ceasefire held.

On 7 August, an agreement was signed.

“Trump’s style is transactional,” says Dr Samir Puri, director of the Centre for Global Governance and Security at Chatham House. “He tries to economically induce the different parties to stop fighting – but there’s a huge difference between getting fighting to stop in the short-term and resolving the root causes of the conflict.”

Dr Puri says that this “nuance is lost on Trump”, while Dr Zenou adds that “underlying tensions are still salient”.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Longstanding tensions between the two African nations reignited in early 2025 when a group of Rwandan-government backed rebels, M23, seized a mineral-rich area of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Rwanda, which borders the M23-controlled region of the DRC, has been accused of supporting the group, but denies the accusations.

After months of fighting, in June the countries’ foreign ministers travelled to the White House to sign a deal promising to honour a previous ceasefire agreement from 2024.

Mr Trump then credited himself with creating peace in “one of the worst wars anyone’s ever seen”.

Read more
What is the fighting in DRC about?

However, the Rwandan M23 rebel group was not directly involved in the talks and has said it does not consider the agreement binding.

Although Dr Puri notes it is “unprecedented” for a US president to intervene in the conflict and Dr Zenou describes it as a “step in the right direction”, he says the lack of M23 representation means the conflict “will likely rage on”.

Israel and Iran

The US bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites after war broke out between the Islamic Republic and Israel on 13 June.

Following the US attacks, Mr Trump said: “Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the US, but Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that the US strikes “did not achieve anything” and claimed Iran had emerged victorious.

Dr Puri notes that this is the only one of the seven conflicts where the president has used military force, which in itself is commendable. But, again, he claims Mr Trump merely “pushed the conflict into a state of dormancy” as opposed to addressing its fundamental causes.

Dr Zenou adds that there was “no peace deal” and the “two sides are essentially at war”.

India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan have fought over the status of the Himalayan border region of Kashmir since their partition in 1947.

Tensions flared up again for four days in May following an attack in India-controlled Kashmir.

The nuclear-armed neighbours came to a ceasefire agreement on 10 May, which Mr Trump claimed was the result of a “long night of talks mediated by the United States”.

Although Pakistani officials ended up nominating him for the Nobel prize, India vehemently denied any US involvement and that talks were held “directly between India and Pakistan”.

Dr Puri describes India-Pakistan as the most “tenuous” of the US president’s peace claims.

“In no way could Trump claim to have resolved the Indo-Pakistan conflict, which dates back to 1947 and has extraordinary structural causes,” he says.

Egypt and Ethiopia

For the last 12 years, Ethiopia and Egypt have been engaged in a dispute over Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the River Nile, which began operating in 2022.

The dam is hugely important to Ethiopia, but Egypt says it compromises its access to water from the Nile. Talks on the issue broke down in late-June and no agreement has been reached.

Soon after, Mr Trump posted on social media: “If I were Egypt, I’d want the water in the Nile,” before declaring the US would solve the dispute soon.

He then claimed the US partially funded the dam – but the White House were unable to expand on his claims.

“I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for keeping Peace between Egypt and Ethiopia (A massive Ethiopian built dam, stupidly financed by the United States of America, substantially reduces the water flowing into The Nile River),” Mr Trump wrote online.

Ethiopian officials heavily dispute the assertions, saying the dam was built “without any foreign aid”.

Serbia and Kosovo

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after years of tensions in the wake of the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

Ninety-two countries recognise Kosovo’s independence, but the Serbian government still does not recognise its sovereignty and, in June this year, tensions flared again.

“Serbia, Kosovo was going to go at it, going to be a big war. I said you go at it, there’s no trade with the United States. They said, well, maybe we won’t go at it,” he posted online.

Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani said she had “reliable information” Mr Trump had intervened to prevent a skirmish but did not give any further details.

When this was put to the White House, Team Trump only referenced the agreement signed at the White House during his first term in September 2020, when the states committed to economic normalisation.

What has Trump said in his Nobel campaign?

2019

In February 2019, Mr Trump claimed Japan’s then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had nominated him following his 2018 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, where they discussed the country’s nuclear weapons programme.

Speaking at the White House, he claimed Mr Abe had given him “the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize”.

He claimed Mr Abe had told him: “I have nominated you,” to which Mr Trump replied: “Thank you. Many other people feel that way too. I’ll probably never get it. But that’s okay.”

The president went on to reference his predecessor Barack Obama winning the prize in 2009.

“They gave it to Obama. He didn’t even know what he got it for. He was there for about 15 seconds and he got the Nobel Prize,” he said. “With me, I probably will never get it.”

2020

In January 2020, he complained he should have won it instead of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, who oversaw his country signing a peace deal in its border conflict with Eritrea.

Referencing his own involvement in the peace talks, which were largely led by Saudi Arabia, Mr Trump told an election rally in Ohio: “I’m going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I’ll tell you about that. I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country.

“But you know, that’s the way it is. As long as we know, that’s all that matters… I saved a big war, I’ve saved a couple of them.”

2024

At another rally ahead of his second election win in 2024, he told supporters in Detroit: “If I were named Obama I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds.”

2025

In February this year, during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, he said: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”

In July, Mr Netanyahu revealed he had nominated Mr Trump, and said he was “forging peace as we speak” in “one country and one region after the other”.

At the New York at the UN General Assembly, after making his seven wars claim, Mr Trump said that “everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize”.

His team has also added to calls for him being awarded the prize, with his press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioning it at several White House briefings, describing him as the “peace president” and saying it is “well past time”.

Could Trump actually win one?

The deadline for nominations for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was on 31 January, not long after Mr Trump returned to the White House.

Over his two terms, he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize more than 10 times – including by Mr Netanyahu, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet, a Ukrainian politician, as well as legislators from the US, Sweden, and Norway.

But it is not clear if any of Mr Trump’s recent nominations came before the January deadline.

Dr Zenou says that while it is not included in his list of “seven wars”, the Abraham Accords, which saw several Arab states recognise Israel for the first time in almost 50 years, are Mr Trump’s “greatest diplomatic achievement”.

Describing them as a “watershed moment in the history of the Middle East”, Dr Zenou said the accords, signed at the White House in 2020, are all the more significant for having held despite the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.

However, Saudi Arabia is yet to sign them, which will serve as “one of Trump’s biggest tests yet” in his quest for the Nobel Prize, Dr Zenou adds.

Could the Gaza agreement help Trump’s cause?

In a major development overnight on Wednesday, Israel and Hamas signed off on the first phase of Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan, with a ceasefire expected to begin within 24 hours.

Mr Netanyahu said the breakthrough meant the remaining 48 hostages held by Hamas, 20 of whom are thought to still be alive, would be returned.

Nina Graeger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, suggests the overnight developments in Gaza have come too late for Mr Trump’s Nobel Prize hopes because the winner “will already have been chosen, and speeches prepared ahead of Friday’s announcement”.

“However, if Donald Trump’s 20-point plan will lead to a lasting and sustainable peace in Gaza, the committee would almost certainly have to take that into serious consideration in next year’s deliberations,” she told Sky News.

“Of course, they would also need to weigh that achievement against the broader record of his efforts to promote peace – both within the US and internationally – in line with Alfred Nobel’s will.”

Why experts think Trump is wrong for the prize

Alfred Nobel’s will, the award’s foundation, says the award should go to the person “who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations”.

That is something Trump is not doing, according to Ms Graeger.

“He has withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization and from the Paris Accord on climate, he has initiated a trade war on old friends and allies,” she said.

“That is not exactly what we think about when we think about a peaceful president or someone who really is interested in promoting peace.”

During his second term, Mr Trump has also proposed measures that critics argue will hamper education and scientific research – two areas that are considered pillars of the Nobel Prize.

Critics of Mr Trump also point to his controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, through which the president has been sending troops to a string of Democratic-led cities to enforce his immigration laws.

The US military has also carried out at least four strikes on boats in recent weeks that the White House said belonged to cartels, including three it said originated from Venezuela.

The Trump administration said 21 people were killed in the strikes – but it has has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats were carrying drugs.

Asle Toje, the deputy leader of the present Norwegian Nobel Committee, has suggested Mr Trump’s lobbying campaign for the prize may have had an opposing effect on his chances of winning.

“These types of influence campaigns have a rather more negative effect than a positive one, he says. “Because we talk about it on the committee. Some candidates push for it really hard and we do not like it.