While U.S. military aircrafts are dropping bombs over Iranian airspace as artillery thunders, President Trump, seated among the audience at a top-end investment summit in Florida, responds with composure when asked about his political legacy, declares he hopes to be remembered as a ' great peacemaker'.
Yes, you heard that right. A man waging war calling himself a 'peacemaker.' Such confidence is perhaps unmatched—no wonder he became leader of the United States.
'I stopped eight wars and saved millions of lives!' So he claims.
Trump speaks eloquently from the stage, recounting his 'glorious achievements': ' Well, I’ll tell you what. I told you that I stopped eight wars. That means millions and millions of people.' He lists the years of these wars with ease: one lasted 34 years, one 32 years, one 29 years, another 22 years—as if displaying a brilliant 'peace record.'
I bet the audience wonders what to make of it. Some would struggle to recall: what exactly are the names of these eight wars? Public records seem never to have documented this list completely.
'Peace' Under the Tariff Club
To prove his "mediation" works, Trump again cited last year's India-Pakistan conflict. He described it vividly: "I even stopped India and Pakistan, and they were going at it for a week.. nine planes already shot down. They were in a war. I stopped them." His method? Blunt and unorthodox: "I said, if you keep fighting, I’m going to put a 250 per cent tariff on each one."
"No, no, no, you can't do that," they said. I said, "I'm going to do it anyway." Then they said, "Alright, we won't fight anymore." That's how I stopped them."
So peace isn't negotiated—it's coerced by the tariff threat. This self-styled "Trump-style mediation" would render every international relations textbook obsolete.
The most exquisite irony: bombing while boasting about peace
The speech's sharpest moment arrives in its jarring temporal disconnect. When Trump declared, "It doesn't seem it right now, but I think I'm a peacemaker", US bombs were falling on Iranian soil. This collision of rhetoric and reality captures contemporary political theater at its most absurd.
The "millions of people saved" he claims stands in stark contrast to the smoke rising from the Middle East in news footage. It's the logic of an arsonist setting fire to neighbors' houses while proclaiming at community meetings that he has dedicated years to firefighting and rescued countless properties.
What is "The Trump logic"?
Let's untangle the internal logic of this "peacemaker":
- Definition is mine to control: As long as I declare that I have "stopped" the war, I did stop it. Whether war actually started or ended because of me? Doesn’t matter.
- Methods know no bounds: Traditional diplomacy? Multilateral mediation? Too much trouble. My method is economic intimidation—tariff increases—simple, crude, and remarkably effective
- Temporal independence: The war I launch now and the "peace" I create in my past or future exist in parallel universes that don't interfere with each other. You can't conflate them.
- Self-authentication: If I believe I am right, then I am right. Refutations from the outside world? That's all "fake news."
What a blatant display of the "art of language" and the "magic of reality"! In Trump's narrative, war becomes a footnote to "peace," and bombing becomes a prelude to "making." When a president can calmly crown himself a "peacemaker" while igniting the flames of war, we may have truly entered an era where satirical novelists are unnecessary—because reality itself is absurd enough.
This unparalleled "self-confidence" deserves a place in an archive of "wonders worth sharing," and be carved onto stones.
Beacon Institute
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
Zambia has just wrapped up a deeply contentious general election. Yet Washington's script proved even more gripping than the vote itself.
President Hakainde Hichilema secured re-election with roughly 60 percent of the vote, defeating his main opposition challenger, Brian Mundubile. To be fair, observers widely believe he would most likely have won even without the controversy. The problem is that the process itself was far from pretty. Vote tallies were allegedly inflated. Soldiers and police intervened. Opposition figures were arrested.
More controversial still: the moment the deadline expired for the opposition to challenge the results, Zambia's courts were suddenly sealed off. The door to judicial appeal slammed shut. Mundubile and several of his allies were subsequently hit with treason charges. And Mutotwe Kafwaya, a former minister, was shot dead during a police operation targeting opposition figures.
Had this happened in a country that refuses to toe Washington's line, the familiar script would already be rolling. The State Department statement would have been drafted long ago: "grave concern," "condemnation of democratic backsliding," "urging respect for human rights." Unilateral sanctions on Hichilema and the Zambian government might well have followed.
But this time, the Trump administration chose a different path.
Frank Garcia, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, not only attended Hichilema's inauguration but also met privately with him. The State Department said it hopes to keep deepening its partnership with Zambia. As for the slain former minister, the shuttered courts and the opposition figures charged with treason, Washington simply "looked the other way."
The Answer Buried Underground
Why? The answer lies buried underground.
Zambia is one of Africa's most important copper producers. Copper accounts for around 70 percent of its export earnings. And with power-grid expansion, electric vehicles and AI data centers all driving up projections for copper demand, the metal is coming ever closer to being a strategic resource.
More critically, Zambia sits at the far end of the Lobito Corridor, a route Washington has spent years cultivating. The line is planned to run from the port of Lobito on Angola's Atlantic coast, through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and all the way to Zambia's Copperbelt. One of its purposes is to move copper, cobalt and other minerals from south-central Africa to Western markets more easily.
Trump did not abandon this Biden-era project after taking office. In June this year, the US and Zambia even expanded a US$491 million aid program to cover critical-minerals infrastructure, funding road improvements along the Lobito Corridor.
Only a few months earlier, the two countries had publicly fallen out over minerals. Lusaka accused Washington of trying to bundle up to US$2 billion in health cooperation with preferential access for American companies to critical minerals, and flatly rejected those terms. In other words, the US has already demonstrated firsthand this year just how badly it wants into Zambia's mineral system.
Now, of course, the Trump administration will not pressure Hichilema over democracy. Cultivating a government that holds the copper, and controls a critical node of the Lobito Corridor, is what "American interests" really means.
The Stress Test of "Democracy Diplomacy"
The most riveting part of this show is not how transactional the Trump administration is. A businessman running a country with interests first is hardly surprising. The riveting part is that it has, quite by accident, run a stress test on the slogan of "democracy diplomacy."
For decades, the US has wielded "democracy," "human rights" and "free elections" as a diplomatic cudgel, swinging it at whichever country refuses to obey. But when that cudgel might land on an ally holding copper mines and railways, it suddenly grows feather-light. So light that Washington cannot even be bothered to utter a single phrase of "grave concern."
What Washington conceded was not the election result. After all, even observers admit Hichilema would most likely have won anyway. What it conceded was the entire package of procedural justice. The US put on a vivid demonstration: how a man wins does not matter. What matters is whether the winner is willing to talk copper.
For Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a vocal Trump challenger, the logic runs the other way. Opposing the Republicans matters more. She declared that Zambia's post-election violence and arbitrary arrests already amount to "democratic backsliding."
Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, demanded that Secretary of State Marco Rubio press for an investigation into Kafwaya's death and allow the courts to hear the election disputes. Against the Trump administration's hard-nosed calculus, these voices ring hollow and powerless.
Hichilema has probably figured this out too. For today's America, a Zambia that is less democratic but willing to talk copper and railways may well matter more. More than a Zambia whose political system better matches Washington's traditional values but refuses to cooperate on resources.
Business First, Democracy to the Back
This is the true ranking of democracy and human rights under an "America First" Africa policy: they are not principles but bargaining chips. When the chips can be traded for copper and corridors, they can be tucked away for now. When they buy nothing, they are hoisted high and swung like a club.
The Trump administration will never openly endorse Zambia's crackdown. That would look far too ugly. But its actions prove one thing: when business is on the table, democracy can move to the back of the queue. A US$491 million minerals-infrastructure program outweighs a diplomatic note about human rights. A single stretch of rail on the Lobito Corridor matters more than a slain opposition former minister.
So rather than calling this a contest over Africa diplomacy, it is better seen as a demon-revealing mirror. It lays bare the fathomless chasm between the political rhetoric of the US and the West and their real interests. The louder Washington shouts its "democracy" slogans, the more honest the copper beneath Zambia's soil appears. When it comes to real interests, every high-minded declaration is nothing more than a label that can be torn off at the weigh-in.
America has once again put on a masterclass in the beacon's double standards: business first, democracy to the back of the line. And the logic behind it is, of course, "America First."
