Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is “concerned” about a war that his boss claimed to have ended weeks ago.
The Cambodia-Thailand conflict is one of several global conflicts President Trump has repeatedly claimed he ended in his second presidency, but fighting between the two countries ticked up again on Monday.
In a post to X Tuesday, Rubio said the “United States is concerned by ongoing fighting and casualties along the Cambodia-Thailand border.”
The Trump-brokered peace deal, which was inked in Malaysia just weeks ago, now appears to be falling apart at the seams. At least eight people have been killed, and around 400,000 people living near the border have been displaced, according to CNN. The fighting has continued into Tuesday.
Trump had posted several times on his Truth Social platform, boasting what he viewed as an end to the conflict.
“I am pleased to announce that, after the involvement of President Donald J Trump, both Countries have reached a CEASEFIRE and PEACE. Congratulations to all! By ending this War, we have saved thousands of lives,” he said in July, referring to himself in the third person.
“NO WAR! Millions of lives saved. Such an honor to have gotten this done,” he posted in October.
Last month, however, Thailand said it was suspending the peace agreement signed just two weeks before after multiple Thai troops were wounded by a landmine at the border.
The conflict is one of eight that Trump has repeatedly claimed to have ended while in office while dubbing himself the “president of peace.”
In addition to the Cambodia-Thailand conflict, Trump has claimed he has ended conflicts between Israel and Iran, Israel and Hamas, Pakistan and India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo. Several of these conflicts were not full-fledged wars, nor have they been completely ended.
Trump held a peace deal signing ceremony last week between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. A prominent Rwanda-backed rebel group responsible for much of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, however, did not sign the deal, and fighting has continued into this week.
Meanwhile, the years-long conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt is mostly a dispute about an Egyptian dam project on the Nile River. While it remains an issue in the region, actual fighting has never occurred over the dispute.
In Eastern Europe, Kosovo and Serbia have had decades-long tensions stemming from the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. These tensions have increased in recent years, but have also not boiled over to the point of actual war during Trump’s presidency.
And regarding the long-time conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, most of the agreement had been negotiated under Joe Biden’s presidency and was carried out by the previous administration. Trump, 79, has also repeatedly confused Armenia with Albania.
