Donald Trump campaigned on ending endless wars and now boasts that he hasresolvedeight wars. In reality, this claim is delusional, and his foreign policy is a disaster. The United States remains mired in ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and now Trump is careening blindly into new wars in Latin America.
The dangerous disconnect between Trumps delusions and the real-world impacts of his policies is on full display in his new National Security Strategydocument. But this schism has been exacerbated by putting U.S. foreign policy in the hands of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose neocon worldview and behind-the-scenes maneuvering have consistently undercut Trumps professed goals of diplomacy, negotiated settlements and America First priorities.
The eight wars Trump claims he hasendedinclude non-existent wars between Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo, and the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that ended in 2023, after Azerbaijan invaded and ethnicallycleansedthe ancient Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh. Trump stole credit for peace between Thailand and Cambodia, which was actuallymediatedby Malaysia, while Indiainsiststhat it ended its war with Pakistan without help from Trump.
Trump recentlyinvitedthe presidents of Rwanda and the DRC to Washington to sign a peace deal, but its only the latest of many agreements that have failed to enddecadesof war and proxy war that rage on in the eastern Congo.
Trump even claims to have brought peace to Iran, which was not at war until he and Netanyahu plotted to attack it. Now diplomacy with Iran is deadtorpedoed by Trumps treacherous use of negotiations ascoverfor the U.S.-Israeli surprise attack in June, an illegal war right out of Rubios neocon playbook.
Rubio has undermined diplomacy with Iran for years. As a senator, heworkedto kill the JCPOA nuclear agreement, framed negotiations asappeasement, and repeatedly demandedharshersanctions ormilitaryaction. He defended the U.S. and Israeli attacks in June, which confirmed the claims of Iranian hardliners that the United States cannot be trusted. He makes meaningful talks with Iran impossible byinsistingthat Iran cease all nuclear enrichment and long-range missile development. By aligning U.S. policy with Israels, Rubio closed off the only path that has ever reduced tensions with Iran: sustained, good-faith diplomacy.
Trumps eighth claimed peace agreement was his Gaza peace plan, under which Israel stillkills and maimsPalestinians every day and allows only 200truckloadsper day of food, water, medicine, and relief supplies into Gaza. With Israeli forces still occupying most of Gaza, no country is sending troops to join Trumps stabilization force, nor will Hamas disarm and leave its people defenseless. Israel still calls the shots, and will only allow rebuilding in Israeli-occupied areas.
As secretary of state, it was Marco Rubios job to negotiate peace and an end to the occupation of Palestine. But Rubios entire political career has been defined by unwavering support for Israel and corrupted by over a million dollars from pro-Israel donor groups likeAIPAC. He refuses to speak to Hamas,insistingon its total isolation and destruction.
Rubio evenrefusesto negotiate with the weakest, most compromised, but still internationally recognized, Palestinian Authority. In the Senate, he worked to defund and delegitimize the PA, and now he insists it should play no role in Gazas future, but he offers no alternative. Contrast this with China, which recentlyconvenedfourteen Palestinian factions for dialogue. With a U.S. secretary of state who wont talk to any Palestinian actors, the United States is only supporting endless war and occupation.
Ukraine is not on Trumps list of eight wars, but it is the conflict he most loudly promised to end on day one. Trump took his first steps to resolve the crisis in Ukraine with phone calls with Putin and Zelenskyy on February 12, 2025. War Secretary Pete Hegseth told ameetingof Americas NATO allies in Brussels that the U.S. was taking Ukraines long-promised NATO membership off the table, and that we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraines pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.
Zelenskyy and his European backers are still trying to persuade Trump that, with his support, they can win back at the negotiating table what Ukraine and its western allies lost by their tragicdecisionto reject a negotiated peace in April 2022. Russia was ready to withdraw from all the land it had just occupied, but the U.S. and U.K. persuaded NATO and Ukraine to instead embark on this long war of attrition, in which their negotiating position only grows weaker as Ukraines losses mount.
On November 21st, Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine that was built around the policy Trump and Hegseth had announced in February: no NATO membership, and no return to pre-2014 borders. But once Rubio arrived to lead the U.S. negotiating team in talks in Geneva, he let Zelenskyys chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and the Europeans put NATO membership and Ukraines pre-2014 borders back on the table.
This was apoison pillto deliberately undermine the basic concept of Ukrainian neutrality that Russia insists is the only way to resolve thesecurity dilemmafacing both NATO and Russia and ensure a stable and lasting peace. As a Europeanofficialcrowed toPolitico, Things went in the right direction in Geneva. Still a work in progress, but looking much better now Rubio is a pro who knows his stuff.
Andriy Yermak, who led Ukraines negotiating team in Geneva, has now been fired in a corruption scandal, reportedly at Trumpsbehest, as has Trumps envoy to Kyiv, Keith Kellogg, who apparentlyleakedTrumps plan to the press.
Trump is facing a schism in his foreign policy team that echoes his first term, when he appointed a revolving door of neocons, retired generals and arms industry insiders to top jobs. This time, he has alreadyfiredhis first National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, severalNSC staff, and now General Kellogg,
Trumps team on Ukraine now includes Vice President J.D. Vance, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Deputy National Security Advisor Andy Baker and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who all seem to be on board with the basic policy that Trump and Hegseth announced in February.
But Rubio is keeping alive European hopes of a ceasefire that postpones negotiations over NATO membership and Ukraines borders for a later date, to allow NATO to once again build, arm and train Ukrainian forces to retake its lost territories by force,as it didfrom 2015 to 2022 under cover of the MInsk Accords.
This raises the questions: Does Rubio, like the Europeans and the neocons in Congress, still back the Biden-era strategy of fighting a long proxy war to the last Ukrainian? And if so, is he now in fact working to undermine Trumps peace efforts?
Ray McGovern, the founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,thinksso, writing …we areat the threshold on Ukraine, at the beginning of a consequential battle between the neocons and Europeans on one side, and Donald Trump and the realists on the other. Will Trump show the fortitude to see this through and overcome his secretary of state?
But its perhaps in Latin America where Rubio is playing the most aggressive role. Rubio has alwayspromotedregime-change policies, economic strangulation, and U.S. interference targeting left-leaning governments in Latin America. Coming from a conservative Cuban familiy, he has long been one of the most hard-line voices in Washington on Cuba,championingsanctions, opposing any easing of the embargo, and working to reverse Obama-era diplomatic openings.
His position on Venezuela is similar. He was a leading architect of the Trump administrations failed maximum pressurecampaignagainst Venezuela, promoting crippling sanctions that devastatedcivilians, while openly endorsing failed coups and militarythreats.
Now Rubio ispushingTrump into a catastrophic, criminal war with Venezuela. In early 2025, Trumps administration brieflypursueda diplomatic track with Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro, spearheaded by envoy Richard Grenell. But Marco Rubios hard-line, pressure-first approach gradually overtook the negotiation channel: Trump suspended talks in October 2025, and U.S. policy shifted toward intensified sanctions and military posturing.
Rubios hostility extends across the region: he hasattackedprogressive leaders in Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, and Brazil, while supporting authoritarians aligned with U.S. and Israeli interests. While Trump has warmed to Brazils president Lula and craves access to its reserves of rare earth elements, the second largest after Chinas, Lula has no illusions about Rubios hostility and hasrefusedto even meet with him.
Rubios approach is the opposite of diplomacy. He refuses engagement with governments he dislikes, undermines regional institutions, and encourages Washington to isolate and punish rather than negotiate. Instead of supporting peace agreementssuch as Colombias fragile accords or regional efforts to stabilize Haitihe treats Latin America as a battleground for ideological crusades.
Rubios influence has helped block humanitarian relief, deepen polarization, and shatter openings for regional dialogue. A Secretary of State committed to peace would work with Latin American partners to resolve conflicts, strengthen democracy, and reduce U.S. militarization in the hemisphere. Rubio does the reverse: he inflames tensions, sabotages diplomacy, and pushes U.S. policy back toward the dark era of coups, blockades, proxy wars and death squads.
So why is Trumpbetrayinghis most loyal MAGA supporters, who take hispromisesto end the era of endless wars at face value? Why is his administration supporting the same out-of-control American war machine that has run rampant around the world since the rise ofneoconslike Dick Cheney andHillary Clintonin the 1990s?
Is Trump simply unable to resist the lure of destructive military power that seduces every American president? Trumps MAGA true believers would like to think that he and they represent a rejection of American imperialism and a new America First policy that prioritizes national sovereignty and shared domestic prosperity. But MAGA leaders like Marjorie Taylor Green can see that is not what Trump isdelivering.
U.S. secretaries of state wield considerable power, and Trump is not the first president to be led astray by his secretary of state. President Eisenhower is remembered as a champion of peace, for quickly ending the Korean War - thenslashingthe military budget - and for two defining speeches at the beginning and end of his presidency: his Chance for Peacespeechafter the death of Soviet premier Josef Stalin in 1953; and his Farewell Address in 1960, in which hewarnedAmericans against the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.
For most of his presidency though, Eisenhower gave his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, free rein to manage U.S. foreign policy. By the time Eisenhower fully grasped the dangers of Dulles brinksmanship with the U.S.S.R. and China, the Cold War arms race was running wild. Then Eisenhowers belatedoutreachto the Soviets was interrupted by his own ill-health and theU-2 crisis. Hillary Clinton had a similarly destructive and destabilizing impact on Obamas first-term foreign policy, in Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria and Honduras.
These should be cautionary tales for Trump. If he really wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, not a warmonger, he had better make the necessary personnel changes to his inner circle before it is too late. War with Venezuela is easily avoidable, since the whole world already knows the U.S. pretexts for war are fabricated and false. Rubio has stoked the underlying tensions and led this escalating campaign of lies, threats and murders, so Trump would be wise to replace him before his march to war crosses the point of no return.
This would allow Trump and Rubios successor to start rebuilding relations with our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean, and to finally change longstanding U.S. policies that keep the Middle East, and now Ukraine, trapped in endless war.
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors ofWar In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, now in a revised, updated 2nd edition.
Medea Benjamin is the cofounder ofCODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, includingInside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author ofBlood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
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