The announcement on October 9, 2025, that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza – complete with hostage releases, partial Israeli troop withdrawals and a surge in humanitarian aid – has been hailed as a diplomatic masterstroke by President Donald Trump. In a characteristic burst of hyperbole on Truth Social, Trump declared it the “first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace”, crediting his “maximum pressure” tactics for forcing the hands of both parties.Celebrations erupted in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square and Gaza’s refugee camps, a rare flicker of hope amid two years of devastation that has claimed over 67,000 lives, mostly Palestinian civilians. Yet, as with so much of Trump’s foreign policy, the devil lurks in the details – or more precisely, in the motivations driving this deal. What appears at first glance as a selfless push for peace is, upon closer inspection, a calculated manoeuvre rooted in American empire-building, elite networking, and the president’s unquenchable thirst for personal aggrandisement.The ceasefire effectively cements the US-led international order’s endorsement of genocide and war crimes, violating international law. As Navi Pillay, the chair of the UN Commission that found Israel responsible for genocide, argues, Trump’s plan contradicts the position of the International Criminal Court. “The main thing is that Palestinians are not part of this,” she commented.To understand the Trump administration’s playbook here, one must revisit the architecture of the US foreign policy establishment – a web of Wall Street interests, corporate-funded think tanks, philanthropic foundations and policy institutes that have long shaped Washington’s interventions in the Middle East. Trump’s team, drawing heavily from his first-term alumni like Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, has repurposed this machinery not for multilateral consensus but for bilateral deal-making that amplifies US leverage.The 20-point plan, unveiled last month, was no neutral blueprint; it was a blunt instrument demanding Hamas’s disarmament and exclusion from Gaza’s future governance, while dangling vague promises of reconstruction under UN and international oversight. This asymmetry – framed as “fair treatment for all parties” – mirrors the Abraham Accords of 2020, Trump’s earlier Middle East “win”, which normalised ties between Israel and Arab states like the UAE and Bahrain without addressing Palestinian statehood.Back then, the accords bypassed the Palestinian question entirely, a sleight of hand that elite networks in Washington and Tel Aviv celebrated as pragmatic realism. Today, the Gaza deal risks repeating that sleight, prioritising hostage swaps and ceasefires over the root causes of occupation and blockade.Three pillars of Trumpian imperialismThe motivations behind this push are multifaceted, but they converge on three pillars of Trumpian imperialism: geopolitical dominance, domestic political theatre and economic opportunism. Geopolitically, the ceasefire serves as a bulwark against a fracturing US-led order in the Middle East. With Iran tacitly signalling acceptance – despite its backing of Hamas – the deal isolates Tehran and strengthens alliances with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who mediated the Sharm el-Sheikh talks.Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including reported threats to withhold arms if talks stalled, was a departure from the unchecked support of his first term. This squeeze, insiders say, stemmed from fears of escalation drawing in Hezbollah or even broader regional chaos, which could undermine Trump’s broader “America First” pivot toward countering China in the Indo-Pacific. By corralling Arab states into coaxing Hamas to the table, the administration has deftly outsourced enforcement to regional powers, ensuring US hands remain relatively clean while reasserting hegemony through proxy.Maximum pressure is also driven by demand for a return on US investment in war and genocide – Trump wants to profit from the $38 billion the US spent supporting Israel and waging regional warfare.Domestically, the timing is impeccable. With midterms in 2026 and Trump’s approval ratings trending downwards, this “historic achievement” – as House Speaker Mike Johnson dubbed it – burnishes his image as the ultimate dealmaker.Kushner’s reprise as negotiator, alongside Witkoff, evokes the spectacle of the Abraham Accords signing, a photo-op goldmine that played well with evangelical voters and pro-Israel donors. Yet, this performative peace obscures the human cost: the deal’s Phase One, effective within 24 hours of Israeli Cabinet approval, mandates Hamas release all 20 remaining living hostages in 72 hours, in exchange for 250 Palestinian life-sentence prisoners and 1,700 detainees.Partial IDF withdrawal to a “yellow line” inside Gaza follows, but Trump himself admitted on October 9, “I can’t guarantee Netanyahu won’t do an operation in Gaza after,” a candid slip that underscores the fragility – and the administration’s indifference to enforcement.A US-led task force will monitor compliance, but without ironclad guarantees against re-escalation, this risks becoming another temporary truce, like the failed January 2025 pause that crumbled after three months.Economically, the undercurrents are equally revealing. Oil prices plunged below $90 per barrel for Brent crude on news of the deal, a boon for US consumers and Trump’s energy independence narrative.Reconstruction pledges – potentially a multi-billion-dollar infusion via UN channels – open doors for American firms in Gaza’s rebuild, echoing the post-Iraq windfalls for Halliburton and its ilk. Trump’s elite backers, from casino magnates to military contractors, stand to gain from stabilised shipping lanes and normalised investments, even as Palestinian self-determination remains an afterthought. This is ‘soft power’ at its most predatory: the West applauds the “stability”, but at what price to Gaza’s sovereignty?Critics, including voices from the Global South, warn that this is no de-escalation but a reconfiguration of empire. Hamas’s exiled leader Khalil al-Hayya touted US “guarantees” for a permanent end to the war, yet the plan’s silence on settlements, the blockade or a two-state horizon sows seeds for future conflict.International praise – from France’s Emmanuel Macron to Japan’s foreign ministry – has poured in, but it’s laced with caveats urging “all sides” to comply, a diplomatic euphemism for scepticism about Israel’s long-term intentions.As a scholar of Anglo-American elites, I hear eery echoes of post-World War II order-building: interventions dressed as benevolence, but engineered to perpetuate imperial dominance.Trump’s Gaza gambit may yet falter – eyewitness reports of Israeli air strikes even as the ink dried suggest their guns haven’t fallen silent or cooled.If Phase Two, encompassing full withdrawal and demilitarisation, unravels, the blame will fall on “Hamas intransigence”, absolving Washington of its complicity. True peace demands more than Trump’s transactional flair; it requires dismantling the structures of inequality that fuel endless war.Until then, this ceasefire is less a triumph than a truce in the American empire’s endless game, in preparation of a victors’ peace that leaves Palestinian rights high and dry.Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and writes the American Imperium column at The Wire. He is an International Fellow at the ROADS Initiative think tank, Islamabad, and author of several books including Foundations of the American Century. He is currently writing a book on the history, politics, and crises of the US foreign policy establishment.