By Jesse Marks, August 25, 2025
Methodology
This analysis draws on Rihla Advisory’s Trump Mediation Tracker compiled through open-source research documenting over 20 cases of U.S. mediation (or attempts at mediation) under Donald Trump’s first and second presidential terms, using publicly accessible government releases, press coverage, policy analysis, author interviews, and first-hand experience.
The dataset captures Trump administration mediation offers, actions, and outcomes between 2019 and 2025. By coding outcomes as successful, partial, or failed, and situating them in regional and geopolitical context, the analysis highlights both continuity and evolution in Trump’s approach to international mediation. The goal is not to produce an exhaustive account but rather to trace the arc of his mediation style and identify the core trends that distinguish his second-term initiatives from those of his first.
A First Term Defined by “Deals”
Trump’s first presidency was marked by a highly visible, transactional approach to diplomacy. Uniquely, these only emerged as a primary foreign policy objective in the final year of the first term. From the outset, the Trump 1.0 Administration framed mediation as an extension of dealmaking, anchored in incentives and trade-offs. This diverges from the more traditional and technical exercise of shuttle diplomacy or as a multilateral process. We see this approach on display in the Abraham Accords of 2020.
During this period, the Trump Administration, led both by President Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, pushed for Arab states to normalize ties with Israel and try to deepen regional trade and coordination. Before the end of the first term, Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at ceremonies in Washington, followed soon after by Sudan and Morocco. Each deal was packaged as a historic breakthrough and aimed to offer leaders on all sides tangible political or economic gains. For the UAE, normalization came with the suspension of Israeli annexation plans, though it would be added back onto the table; for Sudan, it meant removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism; for Morocco, U.S. recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara. Saudi Arabia, the key Arab state Israel sought to normalize with, stopped short of formal recognition but quietly deepened engagement through the U.S. as an interlocutor.
This became the first observable pattern (and signature mediation approach) for Trump’s first administration. Trump and his team would offer transactional concessions in exchange for diplomatic agreements. Outside the Abraham Accords, the results were more varied. The administration launched talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) but failed to secure Ethiopia’s buy-in. A Washington-brokered humanitarian ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh collapsed within hours. U.S.-facilitated talks between Israel and Lebanon on maritime boundaries opened with fanfare but soon stalled. Even the “Peace to Prosperity” plan for Israel and Palestine, rolled out in January 2020, was dead on arrival. While it was welcomed by Israel’s leadership in Jerusalem, the Palestinian leadership rejected it outright in Ramallah, and no real dialogue commenced under this banner.
In sum, Trump 1.0 could deliver highly publicized breakthroughs in limited contexts where transactional bargaining was possible, but it proved far less capable of sustaining talks where deep structural disputes required long-term facilitation and intensive mediation to keep actors at the table. The pursuit of high-visibility optics often outweighed the harder work of long-term peacebuilding.
Personalized Mediators
Another defining feature of the first term was the reliance on trusted non-traditional intermediaries beyond normal U.S. peacebuilding and mediation institutions. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, spearheaded the Abraham Accords and played a central role in the Gulf Cooperation Council reconciliation process, which was finalized just two weeks before the end of Trump’s first term. The Treasury Department—not State—took the lead in GERD negotiations. Trump tended to entrust high-profile initiatives to personal confidants or run them through the National Security Council, sidelining institutional actors like the State Department that traditionally managed U.S. mediation.
The result was a mediation approach dependent on strong personalities over institutional processes. While Kushner’s rapport with Gulf leaders helped facilitate normalization, the lack of institutional depth meant these efforts lacked continuity once circumstances shifted. By the end of Trump’s first term, U.S. mediation had produced headline successes but also a long trail of unfinished or failed initiatives.
Meanwhile, the terminology of the Abraham Accords was largely removed or diminished under the Biden Administration, but Biden’s national security team continued to advance Trump’s normalization framework to bring Saudi Arabia closer to normalization with Israel. This effort was ultimately undercut by the Gaza War, which broke out in October 7, 2023, and drove a wedge between Israel and the Arab world. Trump and his team would again pick up where they left off when re-entering the White House in 2025.
The Arc into the Second Term
Unlike the largely regional focus of the Abraham Accords, Trump’s second-term mediation is increasingly tied to great-power competition. The DRC–Rwanda deal, for example, was framed as a joint U.S.–Qatar initiative that paired security provisions with American investment in mineral-rich eastern Congo—a direct counterweight to China’s entrenched role in Africa’s critical minerals. The Armenia–Azerbaijan agreement of August 2025 similarly carried implications beyond the South Caucasus, granting Azerbaijan corridor rights while securing Armenian constitutional changes. This positioned the United States as a power broker in a space long dominated by Russia and Iran. Even U.S. support for ASEAN-led talks in the Cambodia–Thailand border dispute served to reinforce regional institutions in the face of Chinese assertiveness.
In this way, mediation becomes a tool to cement U.S. influence, secure economic footholds, and constrain rivals such as China, Russia, and Iran.
Some things remain the same
The continuities across both terms are striking. Trump still approaches mediation as transactional dealmaking which underscores pragmatic and incentive-based trade-offs over trust-building. His envoys often lack the traditional diplomatic profile for resolving conflicts. Steve Witkoff, a real-estate ally appointed as special envoy, was central to the January 2025 Gaza ceasefire. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been dispatched to conflicts from Kashmir to Southeast Asia, underscoring Trump’s preference for highly visible surrogates.
Trump’s emphasis on high-visibility optics also remains. Agreements are branded as “historic,” announced in high-profile settings, and often celebrated before they are fully secured. The Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin in August 2025, billed as a potential breakthrough in the Ukraine war, ended without a ceasefire but was framed by Trump as the start of an ongoing process. And, in the run up to and following the Putin meeting, it was not overtly clear what gains the meeting with Putin were. When European leaders arrived the following week with Ukraine’s prime minister, it became clear how far the sides still had to go to reach an agreement. Similarly, Witkoff’s success in brokering the Gaza ceasefire of January 2025—swapping 33 hostages for roughly 1,000 prisoners—was hailed as a major achievement, but both Israel and Hamas have continued to refuse any pathway toward a permanent ceasefire. And, the ongoing war (and unfolding humanitarian crisis) has tested the limits of the Trump Administration’s patience and policy experience in resolving conflicts where neither side will relent. The worse the conflict becomes, the more it underscores Trump’s struggles to resolve it and reflects negatively on his administration—especially as his team fails to ease pressure inside Gaza, in large part because Israeli leaders remain defiant and unwilling to back down.
Where the model lacks
This approach struggles to create lasting solutions in many longer running conflicts where the dispute is not pragmatic, but often historic. Many second-term initiatives have, so far, produced only partial or temporary results.
The July 2025 Gaza talks in Doha collapsed mid-round, with U.S. and Israeli delegations withdrawing over lack of progress. The Alaska summit produced no ceasefire in Ukraine, but seemed to open up a pathway toward more negotiations. ASEAN-led efforts in Cambodia–Thailand remain ongoing with no binding agreement, but there is at least a degree of engagement and mediation process. Even the more successful agreements, like Armenia–Azerbaijan or DRC–Rwanda, face uncertain implementation and strong opposition from neighboring powers. These will require dedicated U.S. intentionality to ensure both sides hold to the terms or, at least, the ability to hand over accountability for these maintaining these deals to regional actors, like the African Union.
What to Expect Going Forward
Looking at the arc from the first to the second term, several lessons stand out.
First, Trump is likely to continue pursuing transactional peace deals where incentives can be leveraged for agreements. The Trump administration are pursuing further Abraham Accords normalization pacts with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Lebanon.
Second, we should expect fragile implementation. Without durable frameworks or multilateral backing, many agreements will face challenges in enforcement, making short-term breakthroughs unlikely to translate into long-term stability. This will be especially true in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Lebanon, and potentially Syria.
Third, Trump’s global scope means U.S. mediation will increasingly intersect with great-power competition. This could expand opportunities for U.S. leverage but also heighten risks of conflict escalation, especially in theaters like Ukraine or the South Caucasus where Russia and Iran are deeply involved.
Fourth, Trump’s reliance on personalist envoys and optics suggests mediation will remain unpredictable. The personalities he entrusts will drive dealmaking going forward, especially after the administration has gutted the State Department and institutions and impaired institutional continuity. This could deliver surprises—both breakthroughs and breakdowns—but will likely prevent the emergence of a coherent U.S. mediation strategy.
Please note that does not necessarily reflect an exhaustive record of all of Trump’s mediation efforts globally. Please see Trump Mediation Tracker to access the data.
For citation, please use: Jesse Marks, “Trump the Mediator: Continuity and Change Across Two Administrations,” The Rihla Initiative, August 25, 2025.
