December hasn’t been kind to President Donald Trump’s global peacemaking efforts.

On Dec. 4, Trump hosted the presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at his newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, hailing the two leaders for launching “a new year of harmony and cooperation.” But on the ground, the fighting raged on. Days after Trump’s Washington peace summit, the Rwandan-backed M23 militia group seized the key Congolese town of Uvira, forcing 200,000 people to flee.

Then, on Dec. 7, fierce fighting once again erupted along the border between Thailand and Cambodia, reigniting a conflict Trump claimed to have resolved after a ceasefire signing ceremony in October. The two sides traded artillery fire, Cambodia launched rockets and armed drones into Thailand, and the Thais responded by carrying out airstrikes against Cambodian military targets. Eleven Thai soldiers have been killed along with at least 11 Cambodian civilians, and more than a half million people have been displaced on both sides.

Trump called the prime ministers of Thailand and Cambodia last week and

© Washington Post