Trump’s Christmas Gift to America: A Year of US Global Leadership and Peacemaking

Trump’s peace-through-strength approach has reversed Biden-era weakness, restoring deterrence, ending conflicts, and reasserting American leadership at home and abroad.

American  Greatness 

Over the last 11 months, there has been a transformation in global security as President Joe Biden’s weak and incompetent foreign policy was replaced by that of one of the strongest US presidents in history, Donald Trump. The stability and peace resulting from Trump’s strong national security leadership is his greatest Christmas gift to America.

It is almost hard to remember the worldwide chaos and malaise caused by Joe Biden. America’s enemies had a field day exploiting the Biden administration’s inept national security policies that prioritized climate change and poorly treated key US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. The disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan ordered by Biden profoundly undermined American leadership and deterrence, emboldening Putin to invade Ukraine as well as Hamas to launch its horrific October 7 terrorist attack against Israel. North Korea’s tests of a record number of ballistic missiles and a massive surge in Iran’s nuclear weapons program resulted from the perception of US weakness under Biden.

President Trump was right when he said in his address to the nation this week that he has significantly improved global peace and security during the first year of his second term.

We have seen a record number of wars and disputes ended this year because of Trump’s peace efforts, including conflicts between India and Pakistan, Rwanda and Congo, Cambodia and Thailand, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia.

In November 2025, at the urging of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump announced a new U.S. diplomatic effort to end the vicious civil war in Sudan.

President Trump’s stubborn determination to stop the fighting in Gaza resulted in his most significant foreign policy victory so far: a 20-point peace plan that won the release of all living Israeli hostages, a cease-fire that is still in place, and a pathway to a permanent peace agreement. Recognition of Trump as the driving force behind this historic peace plan was apparent at a summit last October in Sharm El-Sheikh to endorse the plan, where 30 world leaders almost fell over each other trying to get face time and photos with Trump.

Trump has been especially determined to stop the killing in the Russia-Ukraine War. This has proved far more challenging than he anticipated because the crisis worsened significantly since President Biden and European leaders did nothing to end it.

By contrast, Trump created a peace process to end the fighting in this war that did not exist before. His envoys have held dozens of meetings with Russian and Ukrainian officials to negotiate a cease-fire and a permanent settlement. Although Biden refused to talk to Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Trump spoke with the Russian leader by phone at least eight times this year and held a summit with him in Alaska in August. Unfortunately, Putin has so far defied Trump’s diplomatic outreach.

President Trump’s envoys are currently working to reach a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine War similar to the 20-point Gaza War plan. Significant progress has been made in convincing Ukrainian President Zelensky to make painful concessions to reach an agreement, although there are still areas where the US and Ukraine disagree. Putin remains the main obstacle to an agreement, as he is sticking to his demands that Ukraine cannot accept and seems intent on continuing and winning the war.

Critics of Trump’s Ukraine peace efforts should recognize that negotiating an end to this conflict will be difficult and time-consuming. It can’t be solved without dialogue and probably will require an extended period of severe economic and energy sanctions against Russia before Putin will start to negotiate in good faith. Although I am hopeful that the current push to secure a peace agreement over the next few weeks will succeed, if it does not, I hope President Trump turns to a long-term strategy of escalating pressure on Putin to make peace until the last day of his presidency. (See my December 5, 2025, American Greatness article.)

President Trump addressed regional security threats from Iran and brokered a peace deal with Tehran to end the 12-Day War last June after Israel and the US destroyed Iran’s nuclear weapons program. This was a perfect example of “peace through strength.” New US/Iran talks could be held in early 2026. In addition, by demonstrating American power and resolve, the US airstrikes against Iran boosted the standing of Trump’s diplomats to strike peace deals to end other global conflicts.

The Trump administration’s successful effort to stop illegal immigration and seal America’s southern border helped bring peace to the US homeland by stemming the flow of illegal migrants and drugs into our country. An estimated 11 million illegal migrants crossed into the US over the previous four years because the Biden administration refused to secure our borders. By contrast, illegal border crossings have fallen by 95% or more this year from the peaks seen in 2023 and 2024.

Trump is trying to address the root cause of the massive influx of illegal migrants, gangs, and drugs that crossed into America during the Biden administration with another exercise of peace through strength: the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine to reassert US dominance in the Western Hemisphere. This effort has escalated military pressure on Venezuela through a huge U.S. naval and air buildup in the Caribbean. The official goal of this military operation, known as “Operation Southern Spear,” is countering narco-terrorism and drug trafficking linked to Venezuela. However, an unofficial goal is driving from power Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, an illegitimate leader who the U.S. Department of Justice charged in 2020 with narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, corruption, money laundering, and leading a criminal organization known as the “Cartel of the Suns.”

The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine is intended to promote peace and stability at home and in the Western Hemisphere by asserting American power in the region and countering bad actors and other regional threats. It also recognizes that diplomacy cannot resolve every global conflict—and that military force is sometimes necessary to achieve peace and stability.

We know from history that peacemaking is hard, not every world conflict is solvable, and some peace agreements will fail. As a result, it is likely that some of President Trump’s peace efforts will not succeed. But Trump’s Christmas gift of peace is not the number of global conflicts he ultimately ends, but the hope he has generated by making a strong America a driving force for world peace.