Trump Scores 3 Major Foreign Policy Wins in One Week

President Donald Trump scored three major foreign policy victories this week.  

Almost overlooked amid the successful military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and NATO allies agreeing to increase annual defense spending to 5% of their gross domestic product, the Trump administration also facilitated a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The peace deal ends a 30-year conflict in Africa between Congo and Rwanda.  

“They were going at it for many years, and with machetes,” Trump said Friday of the two warring nations. “It is one of the worst, one of the worst wars that anyone’s ever seen.” 

Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe and the Congolese Foreign Affairs Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner were in Washington on Friday for the signing of the deal, which was overseen by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  

The U.S.-mediated deal also helps the U.S. gain access to critical minerals in Congo. The peace agreement is seen as a critical step to ending the ongoing conflict between the two nations that began in the 1990s and has left millions dead.  

Trump hosted the foreign ministers of the two nations at the White House on Friday afternoon following the signing of the deal.  

“I think this has been one of the most consequential weeks any president has ever had on the national security stage,” Victoria Coates, vice president of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation and a former deputy national security adviser to Trump, told Fox News. 

The peace agreement capped off a banner week for the president, which included Trump being called “daddy” in a humorous exchange with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands.  

Speaking at the NATO event Wednesday morning, Trump likened the recent conflict between Israel and Iran to “two kids in a schoolyard.”  

After Trump helped to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and Iran following 12 days of fighting, the two nations exchanged in some fire, drawing severe criticism from Trump before both nations ceased all attacks.  

“You know, they fight like hell,” Trump said at NATO while speaking with Rutte. “You can’t stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes, then it’s easy to stop them.”  

Rutte chimed in, commenting, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get them to stop,” referring to Trump’s saying Iran and Israel “don’t know what the f— they’re doing.” 

“You have to use strong language,” Trump said. “Every so often, you have to use a certain word.” 

The president took questions from reporters on Iran, NATO, and the peace deal between Congo and Rwanda, among other topics, for nearly an hour Friday afternoon on the heels of a number of major rulings from the Supreme Court.  

“This is a really big day,” Trump told reporters, adding, “We’ve had a big week. We’ve had a lot of victories this week.”  

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