Trump launches Board of Peace that some fear rivals UN

DAVOS, Switzerland – US President Donald Trump on Jan 22 launched

his Board of Peace

, initially focused on shoring up Gaza’s ceasefire, but with a potentially broader role that could unsettle other global powers, even as he said it would work with the United Nations.

“Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do, and we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” Mr Trump said, adding that the UN had great potential that had not been fully utilised.

Mr Trump, who will chair the board, has invited dozens of other world leaders to join it and sees the group as addressing global challenges beyond Gaza, though he does not intend it as a replacement for the UN, he has said.

He appeared to touch on those concerns in his opening remarks at a signing ceremony for the board, saying it would work with the UN, as he listed other major diplomatic issues around the region and worldwide.

“Well, this is a very exciting day, long in the making, and many countries have just received their notice, and everybody wants to be a part of it, and we’ll work with many others, including the United Nations,” he said.

A group of leaders and senior officials from 19 countries, including Mr Trump’s allies from Argentina and Hungary, gathered onstage with Mr Trump to put their names to the founding charter of the body.

The signing ceremony was held in Davos, Switzerland, where the annual World Economic Forum, bringing together global political and business leaders, is taking place.

Mr Trump said they were “in most cases very popular leaders, some cases not so popular”. He added: “That’s the way it goes in life.”

Other major global powers and traditional Western US allies have baulked at joining the board, which Mr Trump says permanent members must help fund with

a payment of US$1 billion (S$1.28 billion) each,

with them either responding cautiously or declining the invitation.

Global role

Apart from the US, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council – the five nations with the most say over international law since the end of World War II – has yet committed to join.

Russia said late on Jan 21

it was studying the proposal

after Mr Trump said it would join.

Key US allies, including France and Britain, have expressed scepticism, with Britain saying on Jan 22 it would not attend the ceremony.

The members onstage largely had close ties with Mr Trump, including Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Argentina’s President Javier Milei, or a wish to show their allegiance to the US President.

Officials from Bahrain, Morocco, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Mongolia also signed the document with Mr Trump.

“There’s tremendous potential with the United Nations, and I think the combination of the Board of Peace with the kind of people we have here... could be something very, very unique for the world,” Mr Trump said.

The board’s creation was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution as part of Mr Trump’s Gaza peace plan, and UN spokesman Rolando Gomez said on Jan 22 that UN engagement with the board would be only in that context.

Sputtering Gaza ceasefire

The board’s charter will task it with promoting peace around the world, a copy seen by Reuters showed.

Mr Trump has already named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Gaza negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, and former British prime minister Tony Blair as among the board members.

Mr Rubio said the board’s focus would be on making sure the plan for peace in Gaza was fulfilled, but that it could also “serve as an example of what’s possible in other parts of the world”.

Mr Kushner, who is Mr Trump’s son-in-law, said the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal would address funding for reconstruction in the territory, which lies mostly in ruins, as well as disarmament by Gaza’s dominant Palestinian militant group Hamas, one of the most intractable unresolved issues.

“If Hamas doesn’t demilitarise, that would be what holds this plan back,” he said.

“The next 100 days, we’re going to continue to just be heads down and focused on making sure this is implemented,” he said. “We continue to be focused on humanitarian aid, humanitarian shelter, but then creating the conditions to move forward.”

In a sign of progress on unresolved elements of the first phase of the truce, the Palestinian technocratic committee leader Ali Shaath said the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s main gateway, would reopen next week.

The

ceasefire in Gaza

, agreed in October, has sputtered for months with Israel and Hamas trading blame for repeated bursts of violence in which several Israeli soldiers and hundreds of Palestinians have been killed.

Both sides accuse each other of further violations, with Israel saying Hamas has procrastinated on returning the final body of a dead hostage, and Hamas saying Israel has continued to curb aid into Gaza despite an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Each side rejects the other’s accusations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has

accepted an invitation by Mr Trump to join the board

, the Israeli leader’s office says.

Mr Trump has been characteristically bold in his comments on Gaza, saying the ceasefire amounts to “peace in the Middle East”. REUTERS