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Trump Claims Another War ‘Stopped’ — As Thailand-Cambodia Declares 72-Hour Ceasefire

Trump says he stopped the Thailand-Cambodia war again — but the same ceasefire collapsed weeks ago, with fighting resuming despite US claims.

By Tracey Ashlee
President Donald Trump is once again taking credit for stopping a war between Thailand and Cambodia — a conflict he also claimed to have halted just weeks earlier. On Sunday, Trump said fighting between the two Southeast Asian neighbors would end “momentarily,” announcing on Truth Social that both countries would “go back to living in peace,” per Anadolu Agency. He framed the ceasefire as another personal diplomatic win ahead of a scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later that day. “I am pleased to announce that the breakout fighting between Thailand and Cambodia will stop momentarily,” Trump wrote, praising the deal as “fast & decisive,” and congratulating leaders in both countries for what he called a “very fair conclusion.” Trump went further, attacking the United Nations and suggesting the US had replaced it. “Perhaps the United States has become the real United Nations, which has been of very little assistance or help,” he added. The claim mirrors remarks Trump made in November, when he told reporters he had “stopped a war” between the same two countries by preserving a US-brokered ceasefire, the Associated Press reported via The Hill. That agreement, however, later unraveled. According to Forbes, the latest ceasefire is based on the same October treaty Trump helped broker alongside China and Malaysia. That agreement collapsed in December, when fighting resumed along the disputed border, raising questions about how much influence Trump played in the newest deal. BBC News reports Trump was “conspicuously absent” from the most recent negotiations, despite US involvement behind the scenes. Chinese diplomats and regional leaders were more directly engaged in the talks that led to Saturday’s agreement. Under the new truce, fighting is set to pause during a 72-hour observation period. Thailand is expected to return 18 Cambodian soldiers it has detained since July, Forbes reports. The conflict itself has been anything but brief. Cambodia and Thailand have clashed for more than a century over their 800-kilometer border, drawn by French colonial cartographers in 1907. The latest round of violence began in May after a Cambodian soldier was killed, triggering troop buildups and border closures. Since then, the fighting has killed dozens of civilians and soldiers and displaced hundreds of thousands. According to Anadolu Agency, nearly one million people were forced to flee their homes during the most recent escalation. Even after Trump publicly declared the fighting over earlier this month, artillery fire and airstrikes continued. Thai officials said Cambodian rockets injured civilians, while Cambodian authorities accused Thailand of bombing civilian infrastructure, including hotels and bridges. Neither government confirmed an immediate ceasefire at the time of Trump’s earlier announcement. Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Cambodia would first need to withdraw troops and remove landmines before fighting could stop, per the BBC. Despite that history, Trump grouped the Thailand-Cambodia deal with what he described as multiple global conflicts he has “settled and stopped” over the past 11 months, including wars involving Israel, Iran, and Armenia, according to Forbes. Not all of those claims have held. Several conflicts Trump cited later resumed, and in some cases, foreign governments declined to credit the US with brokering peace. Trump’s renewed claim comes as he intensifies his public push to be seen as a global dealmaker. The announcement landed just hours before his meeting with Zelenskyy in Florida, where Ukraine’s security guarantees are expected to dominate discussions. For now, the Thailand-Cambodia ceasefire stands — again — resting on the same framework that failed once before, with both sides still divided over the border dispute at the heart of the war.

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