The Board of Peace is another Trump scam

Media commentary on Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has rightfully focused on the peculiar concatenation of countries that have joined. They are mostly authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states cozying up to Trump, plus a few democracies anxious to gain access to him. By my reckoning, no truly consolidated democracies except Mongolia, an exception that proves the rule, have joined. Absent are all the major powers in Europe, Africa, Central and East Asia, and Latin America. No sub-Saharan African states have joined.

The Middle East is well represented (Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates). That’s understandable, since the Board’s first order of business will be Gaza. Whether any of these or other members will ante up the $1 billion for permanent membership is not yet clear. They don’t have to do it for a year. Russia wants to join and pay for its membership with frozen funds. Trump said that was okay.

The substance

Whoever wrote the Charter knew the issues well. Its preamble touches a lot of the right points:

Declaring that durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed;

Recognizing that lasting peace takes root when people are empowered to take ownership and responsibility over their future;

Affirming that only sustained, results-oriented partnership, grounded in shared burdens and commitments, can secure peace in places where it has for too long proven elusive;

Lamenting that too many approaches to peace-building foster perpetual dependency, and institutionalize crisis rather than leading people beyond it;

Emphasizing the need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body; and

Resolving to assemble a coalition of willing States committed to practical cooperation and effective action,

But note that reference for the need for a more nimble and effective body. That hints at the real agenda here, which is to empower Donald Trump so that he doesn’t have to use the United Nations. Unfortunately, UNSC resolution 2803 (2025) empowered the then non-existent Board of Peace to take over reconstruction of Gaza. That was a big mistake.

The real agenda

Donald Trump, not the United States (which he also represents), is to be the Chair of the Board. Here is my count of his powers:

• Only those states that he invites can become participants.
• He can renew the initial three-year terms.
• He can remove member, subject only to a two-thirds vote to reverse his decision.
• The Chair decides the time and place of Board meetings.
• He must approve the agenda for at least annual meetings.
• He must approve all decisions made (by a majority of member states present and voting).
• Trump can issues invitations to participate in meetings to relevant regional organizations.
• He has “exclusive authority to create, modify, or dissolve subsidiary entities as necessary or appropriate to fulfill the Board of Peace’s mission.”
• He appoints the Executive Board, which can remove him but only by unanimous vote and he is succeeded by his own designee.
• The Chair has a veto over Executive Board decisions, when made or thereafter, and over amendments to the Charter, which require two-thirds approval of the Executive Board (that he appoints).
• In case you haven’t guessed yet, “the Chairman is the final authority regarding the meaning, interpretation, and application of this Charter.”
• He can adopt resolutions or other directives, decides on dissolution of the Board, and no reservations to the Charter are permitted.

In short, the Board of Peace is do whatever Donald Trump decides. The through line, as always, is his personal, unrestrained power.

Future nightmares

Max Boot, who sees the Board of Peace as I do, thinks it is already floundering. That is the best that can happen. If poor Gaza is subjected to this horror, Jared Kushner’s plan to remove most Palestinians and rebuild Gaza for internationals to take over will be the best that could happen to it. The ethnic cleansing of most Palestinians would then become permanent, though who else would want to live there I don’t know. It won’t be safe.

Israel’s plan, to rebuild the half of Gaza it now occupies for the one-tenth of the population willing to live there, is arguably even worse. But it would at least leave most of the Palestinians on territory they have a right to for their state.

The Board of Peace is another Trump scam intended to empower himself. The sooner it implodes, the better.