"Renewed fighting between Thailand and Cambodia along their shared border has now raged for over a week, undercutting U.S. President Donald Trump's aspirations to be a peacemaker, while also threatening an economy that spreads across Southeast Asia. Thai and Cambodian forces clashed earlier this year, which ended after the Trump administration helped to broker a peace deal between the two countries, both members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a bloc of eleven Southeast Asian countries."
"Trump announced the deal with great fanfare on Oct. 26, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, and since touted the deal as evidence of his dealmaking prowess. With skirmishes continuing along the border this week, Trump has tried to get both sides to honor the ceasefire, to no avail. The conflict's repercussions are expanding beyond Thailand and Cambodia: on Tuesday, Thailand cut fuel trade across the border to neighboring Laos, due to concerns that shipments were being diverted to Cambodian forces."
""The ceasefire is inevitably fragile because it deals only with temporary matters-such as military withdrawal and monitoring-and does not address the fundamental territorial boundary issue," says Pasha L. Hsieh, a law professor from the Singapore Management University. Joanne Lin, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, agrees, adding that a key objective of the ceasefire was to secure Trump's attendance at the ASEAN summit. As such, the truce was rushed and concluded quickly, with limited negotiation and few safeguards."
Renewed fighting along the Thailand–Cambodia border has raged for over a week, undermining President Donald Trump's peacemaker aspirations and threatening regional economic links. Earlier clashes had ceased after a U.S.-brokered peace deal announced on Oct. 26 at the ASEAN summit, but skirmishes have resumed and U.S. appeals to honor the ceasefire have failed. The conflict is spilling beyond the two states: Thailand halted fuel trade across the border to Laos amid fears shipments were diverted to Cambodian forces. ASEAN analysts say the truce is fragile because it addresses only temporary military measures, not the underlying territorial boundary dispute, and was rushed to achieve diplomatic optics.
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