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Trump’s Board of Peace: Should we take it literally or seriously?
As it prepares to hold its inaugural meeting this week, plenty of questions remain about the design and larger ambitions of this neo-royalist organisation.
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The Board of Peace was touted as a new “international organisation” with a global mandate to promote stability and restore governance in “areas affected or threatened by conflict".
PHOTO: AFP
When the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803 in late 2025, it welcomed the proposed Board of Peace as a transitional mechanism to help implement a plan to end the horrific Gaza conflict. At the time, it appeared to be another pragmatic, time-limited device in the long tradition of ad hoc arrangements endorsed by the council to implement a mandate.
Then, at Davos in January, US President Donald Trump unveiled something far more ambitious and ambiguous. The Board of Peace was touted as a new “international organisation” with a global mandate to promote stability and restore governance in “areas affected or threatened by conflict”. On Feb 19, it meets for the first time in Washington at the recently renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. A reconstruction plan and stabilisation force for Gaza will be the focus of its inaugural meeting.
