Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” is anything but*
You may have heard that there’s a new Board of Peace in town. Sounds appealing, at least if you go no further than the name. After all, couldn’t a new body with a compelling title devoted to peace help address what is so urgently needed in these fractured and conflict-riven times.
Peace, yes please. Our world craves it.
If only that is what this board was about. To the contrary, it could not be further from what it claims to be. Instead, we are faced with a Donald Trump greed-and-vanity project, rooted in colonialism, designed and intended to further institutionalize the racist double standards that have long eviscerated the fundamental, internationally guaranteed right of Palestinians to self-determination, and denied them their most basic humanity.
And that is just the first phase. It is now abundantly clear that this initiative extends far beyond entrenching subjugation of the Palestinian people. This is a key element of Donald Trump’s determination to decimate the international laws and institutions which have brought some semblance of stability and regard for the rule of law to our world. This reflects his drive to replace those global norms and safeguards with something that is perverse in its disregard for peace and human rights, and which he intends to dominate, personally, beyond any basic notions of transparency and accountability.
The board burst onto the world stage, with the imprimatur of a UN Security Council resolution, on November 17, 2025; a resolution which—remarkably in these toxically divided geopolitical times—passed without veto. Endorsing Donald Trump’s 20-point Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, the Security Council welcomed the “establishment of the Board of Peace as a transitional administration with international legal personality that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for, the redevelopment of Gaza.”
The Board of Peace was deeply problematic from the outset, perhaps most fundamentally in that it entirely disenfranchised Palestinians. There was no Palestinian to be appointed to board membership, leaving the people with the most at stake outside looking in at this new international body that had been empowered to oversee their lives and given responsibility for decisions about the measures to be taken to rebuild their communities after the unimaginable carnage and devastation of more than two years of genocide.
A ceasefire was, of course, urgently needed (though has proven to be a cruel illusion as Israeli military strikes in Gaza have continued, unabated, since the ceasefire began, killing over 500 Palestinians, including at least 30 people on January 31 alone). But a peace plan that continues to sideline Palestinians does nothing to lay the ground for Palestinian statehood, sovereignty and well-being. It is essentially reinforcing the Palestine Exception status quo: rights are universal, except for Palestinians.
Then, as the Board of Peace was “launched” by Trump at the World Economic Forum, it became clear that there is more to this venture, with far-reaching and insidious global consequences beyond extending and profiting from genocide in Gaza. As if this was the cover of a comic book, this increasingly looks like a blatant play for global empire and global domination. We know that is how Donald Trump sees the United States and, even more significantly, how he sees himself in the world. So why should we be surprised?
It first became evident as the roll call of confirmed or possible “members of the board” started to appear in news reports. Several things were immediately clear. All were sycophants and camp followers of Donald Trump. There were no women in the mix (consistent with Donald Trump’s undeniable misogyny and, one assumes, the fact that women see this dangerous charade for what it is). And none of those signing up had a reputation for peacemaking (quite the contrary, it seemed as if a notorious record of violating human rights or of expressing contempt for international law was a prerequisite for membership).
As such, quick to join were the leaders of Argentina, El Salvador, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Uzbekistan. And invitations have been extended to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netnyahu and Narendra Modi, among a wide cast of rogues and thugs spanning the globe. Conspicuously absent—either having turned down or desperately trying to ignore invitations in their inboxes—are longstanding U.S. allies in Western Europe, as well as Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
There were early reports that Prime Minister Mark Carney was close to accepting an invitation to join and would draw Canada into this debacle. The invitation was later rescinded when Donald Trump took umbrage with Carney’s global rupture speech in Davos. One assumes the prime minister likely sighed with relief.
Here’s the rub though. Now that it has been launched, and the board’s charter is public, there is no denying that this is well beyond Gaza. In fact, the words Palestine and Israel do not appear anywhere in the charter. There is not a single reference to reconstruction and peace in Gaza. What we see, instead, is a body clearly being positioned to compete with and undermine the United Nations. Consider the first article:
The Board of Peace is an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict. The Board of Peace shall undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law and as may be approved in accordance with this Charter, including the development and dissemination of best practices capable of being applied by all nations and communities seeking peace.
Sounds very similar to core aspects of the UN’s mandate; only the UN is completely absent from how the Board of Peace sees the world.
And what of membership? Clearly not the global approach to membership at the United Nations, with every state having an equal voice and vote. Membership is limited to those invited by the “chairman” and the charter names the “inaugural Chairman” to be Donald J. Trump. He is to remain in that role indefinitely unless he voluntarily resigns or “as a result of incapacity.” And his replacement is not selected by vote or any sort of public appointment process, but is designated by the chairman, i.e. by Trump.
Also notable is that membership comes with a price tag. The initial membership term is for three years. However, that three-year limit is waived for those leaders who pay US$1 billion “in cash funds.” Interested in knowing more about oversight of those funds and how they are to be used? Good luck.
Let us not forget that Trump is pushing ahead with this brazen power grab, which screams corruption by its very architecture, at the same time as he has launched a full assault on the United Nations and global multilateralism. U.S. funding cuts have unleashed a funding crisis that is imperiling vital UN humanitarian, human rights and peacebuilding agencies and activities. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the UN is on the brink of “imminent financial collapse”.
Where does this leave us?
No one who relies on international legal frameworks and engages with the UN and other multilateral institutions would pretend they are anywhere close to perfect. They are plagued by internal deficiencies and bloat and, more significantly, are undermined at every turn by governments intent on advancing their own greedy interests and propensity for violence over the global good.
Even then, though, the UN has made immeasurable contributions to this being a better world. We need it, desperately so. Our attention and energy, therefore, must be focused on improving and strengthening what we have painstakingly created and built up over the past 80 years. We do not do so by establishing a parallel structure, with no accountability, that is patently nothing more than a global playground for Donald Trump’s narcissism and tender ego.
Mark Carney should not have given a second thought to joining this perverse Board of Peace. Now that Donald Trump has petulantly told him he is not welcome, he should stay far away. He should instead work with other countries who see Trump’s power grab for what it is, as well as the middle-power countries the prime minister called out to in his Davos speech, to shore up what a truly multilateral approach to securing peace in Gaza and all corners of our world looks like and what it necessitates.
To use the prime minister’s framing from that speech, that means recognizing that the “pragmatic and principled” way forward is one that seeks at every turn to deliver universal human rights, and to do so transparently, consistently and unconditionally. That will require strong and courageous resistance to Donald Trump’s desire to rule the world. There is no other option.
*Originally published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, on February 4, 2026.
