One of the key highlights of US President Donald Trump’s White House press briefing to mark one year of his second term in office on Tuesday (US time) has been to position himself as a world leader who prevented eight wars in 10 months. And for each war, he said, he deserves the Nobel Prize.
But it didn’t end at that. Trump at the White House presser took potshots at the United Nations and said that the world body did not help him settle even one war. “I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace. With all the wars they settled, the United Nations never helped me in one war,” he said as he made a glorious mention of the ‘Board of Peace’ that he recently unveiled as part of the second phase of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
The body is expected to oversee capacity-building for governance, reconstruction, investments and capital mobilisation in the devastated enclave and India too was invited to be a part of it.
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Trump was asked if he wanted to replace the United Nations with the Board of Peace. To this, he said, “The UN just hasn’t been very helpful. I’m a big fan of the UN’s potential, but it has never lived up to its potential. The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them. I never even thought to go to them. You’ve got to let the UN continue because the potential is so great.”
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At the presser, Trump claimed that he helped end eight wars in 10 months, including that between India and Pakistan in May 2025.
“Pakistan and India,. they were really going at it. Eight planes were shot down. They were going to go nuclear, in my opinion. The Prime Minister of Pakistan was here and he said, President Trump saved 10 million people and maybe much more than that,” he said.
Trump said he deserved a Nobel Prize for each war. “I saved millions and millions of people. Don’t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots, okay? It’s in Norway. Norway controls the shots…That’s why I have such respect for Maria, doing what she did. She said, I don’t deserve the Nobel Prize. He does…”
India has consistently dismissed the claim while maintaining that the ceasefire to the military flareup following India’s Operation Sindoor against terror bases in Pakistan wasn’t mediated by a third party.
