President Donald Trump used a one-day tour of Israel and Egypt to soak in the praise from fellow leaders and lay out a vision for broader Middle East peace after the success of U.S.-led mediation efforts to end the fighting in Gaza.

Now comes the even harder part.

Speaking in the resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Trump signed a Gaza agreement that he said had taken 3,000 years to reach. He then stood before more than a dozen leaders he’d gathered to the spot and gave a campaign-style speech, thrashing his predecessor, Joe Biden, and even some of them.

"You’re friends of mine, you’re great people,” Trump told the fellow leaders lined up behind him. "I have a couple I don’t like in particular but I’ll — I won’t tell you who.”

Setting aside Trump’s tone, even his critics and political opponents agreed it was a well-deserved victory lap, given he’d reached a peace deal that had proved elusive for Biden and the others present. Fragile as the peace may be, Trump got Hamas to release the remaining hostages it held and persuaded Israel to stop its ruinous military campaign in Gaza.

The extraordinary gathering could in some ways be interpreted as a balm to a bruised ego after Trump failed to win a Nobel Peace Prize last week that he had publicly lobbied for. At one point during the celebration on Monday, a jubilant Trump made light of the timing. "Oh, Norway, ay yai yai,” he said. "What happened, Norway?”

Trump was the center of attention, turning normally busy leaders from more than 20 nations and multilateral organizations into spectators, after persuading them all to travel to join a very short summit.

Beneath the surface-level imagery of the flags from around the world and the strained smiles of Trump’s peers, the goals he set out are formidable. As important as it was to get the deal for the release of the remaining hostages and Israel to halt its assault on Hamas, the next steps are likely to be harder.

In his speech at Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem, Trump proclaimed "the historic dawn of a new Middle East” and mused that getting a peace agreement with Iran — a nation that Israel fought in a 12-day war in June before the U.S. struck it with a dozen bunker-buster bombs — will be "easy.”

"The president has long been prone to hyperbole, and we saw it come out today,” said Jonathan Panikoff, of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Program. "The challenges of a broader peace deal are incredibly difficult.”

Trump in his speech in Israel seven times cited the Abraham Accords, the agreements from his first term that normalized diplomatic relationships between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Trump has long wanted to expand the accords to more nations, a goal actively pursued between Israel and Saudi Arabia before the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.

Underscoring the lasting tensions that will be difficult to shake, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at one point balked at joining the summit in Egypt over the possible attendance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government Erdogan has accused of genocide. In the end, Netanyahu didn’t attend because of a Jewish holiday.

Trump repeatedly gushed over Erdogan during and after Monday’s summit.

"I don’t get along with the weak ones. I get along with the tough ones. I don’t know what that is, but Erdogan has been great with me,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One en route back to Washington. "You know, when NATO has a problem with Erdogan, which they often do, they call me to talk to him, and I’ve never failed in working it out like immediately,”

The ceremony on Monday was to mark a watershed moment of deescalation between Israel and Hamas. Yet the path for implementing some of the most difficult points of Trump’s 20-point plan for peace in Gaza — like disarming Hamas — remained unclear on Monday, even as Trump predicted that they will happen.

Trump also cast doubt on another point — having former British Prime Minister Tony Blair serve on the "Board of Peace” that Trump will lead. Trump on Sunday said that he needs to see if Blair is acceptable to everyone — even though his name was included in the plan announced by the White House two weeks ago.

Trump won’t need to wait long before he again faces a challenge that so far has resisted his dealmaking abilities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to visit the White House on Friday as Trump seeks an end to the nation’s war with Russia.

Trump promised during the 2024 campaign to bring the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to a swift close. But peace requires agreement implementation and follow-through that goes beyond initial ceasefires and lofty declarations, said Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

"You can’t just do that by making statements that are attention-grabbing,” he said. "You actually need to do the work.”