Peacemaker Abroad, Warmonger at Home

August 31, 2025, a traveler arriving at Washington, DC's Union Station walks past armed National Guard troops and an armored vehicle deployed outside. [Photo by ZUMA Press]

President Donald Trump has spent much of his second term fashioning himself as a global peacemaker. “I’ve done six wars. I’ve ended six wars,” Trump boasted during an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a remark meant to underscore his outsized role in the war in Ukraine and beyond.

In early August, leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House, formally concluding their latest bloody clash over Nagorno-Karabakh. Trump heralded the agreement, declaring the countries would now “be friends a long time.” 

Skeptics noted that the symbolic accord’s ability to bring lasting stability to the South Caucasus remains uncertain.

Trump trumpeted success in brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Iran after a brief but devastating 12-day war. Joint Israeli and U.S. strikes decimated parts of Iran’s nuclear program before the cease-fire. “This is the end of the war,” Trump told Axios. “It is a great thing for Israel and the world.” 

On the Indian subcontinent, Trump’s claims were even more controversial. He repeatedly asserted that the U.S. mediated a cease-fire between India and Pakistan, only to be bluntly rebutted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who insisted the truce was the result of direct military-to-military dialogue.

Whether or not Trump’s involvement was as decisive as he portrays, the pattern is clear: He wants to be remembered as a peacemaker on the world stage.

But at home Trump’s posture has been anything but peaceful. While touting his record of “no new wars” abroad, he has deployed American troops into American cities and assumed unprecedented powers.

Member of the National Guard armed with rifle and sidearm patrols the National Mall in Washington, DC, on August 26, 2025. [Photo by ZUMA Press]

On Aug. 11, Trump declared a “public safety emergency” in Washington, invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to seize control of the Metropolitan Police Department, something no president had ever done before. He simultaneously activated 800 National Guard troops, supplemented by soldiers from states such as Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. 

Trump justified the decision as necessary to fight crime, though data showed violent crime in Washington had dropped to its lowest level in three decades. The move highlighted Trump’s willingness to use government power in unprecedented ways.

This was not an isolated instance. Two months earlier, amid unrest after immigration raids, Trump dispatched 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to support federal agents during anti-ICE protests. California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the deployment as “authoritarian” and filed suit against the administration. Critics saw the deployment as an escalation meant more to inflame political divisions than to restore order.

Perhaps more corrosive than deploying troops into American cities is Trump’s push to further gerrymander our politics at home. He successfully pressured Texas Republicans to convene a special legislative session to redraw congressional maps well before the normal 10-year redistricting cycle. The goal is to flip five Democratic-held seats in the 2026 midterms. 

Democrats called the move illegal and racially discriminatory, promising to challenge it in court. Some Texas Democrats even fled the state in protest, a tactic reminiscent of the 2021 voting rights fight.

The standoff spilled beyond Texas. Newsom announced a ballot initiative to redraw California’s districts in response, potentially netting Democrats five additional seats. Other states are considering similar measures, fueling what one lawmaker described as a “redistricting arms race.” The likely outcome is not just altered maps, but even more polarized politics, with fewer competitive districts and diminished public trust in democratic institutions.

The irony is stark. Abroad, Trump speaks the language of reconciliation, eager to cast himself as the president who ended wars. At home, he deploys soldiers in cities, seizes control of police departments and encourages partisan manipulation of congressional districts. These are not the acts of a peacemaker.

The great figures of American history — Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt — are remembered for uniting the nation in moments of crisis, not for sowing division. Trump, by contrast, seeks to consolidate power by pitting Americans against one another. He may claim the mantle of peacemaker on the world stage, but at home — in our cities, neighborhoods and democratic institutions — he is America’s greatest warmonger.