Trump Inaugurates His New Board of Peace Populated by Autocrats, Kings, and Allies

President Trump, a man hell-bent on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, formalized his “Board of Peace” at Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday in order to help administer the governance and rebuilding of the Gaza Strip. While many Western allies have eschewed membership, Mr. Trump has decided to populate his new board with a host of autocrats, kings, and conservative allies.Mr. Trump described the board as “something very, very unique for the world.”Mr. Trump announced the creation of the board last week, in a lengthy statement laying out Gaza’s future as a territory governed by a collection of Palestinian technocrats, Arab and other foreign leaders and diplomats, the president’s own close allies, and former United Nations officials. The Board of Peace itself is led by Mr. Trump as chairman and will include potentially dozens of national leaders, with one vote afforded to each country. Subordinate to that is an Executive Committee made up of Secretary of State Marco Rubio; special envoy Steve Witkoff; the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; the former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Sir Tony Blair; American billionaire Marc Rowan; World Bank president Ajay Banga; and deputy U.S. national security advisor Robert Gabriel. A second Gaza Executive Board, which includes several diplomats from the region, will oversee day-to-day governance of Gaza.Mr. Kushner gave a presentation at the launch that included real estate development plans for Gaza.Following the presentation, Mr. Trump said, “I’m a real estate person at heart, and it’s all about location, and I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property, what it could be for so many people.”Dozens of foreign nations have been invited to join the board under Mr. Trump’s leadership for an initial three-year period. In order to secure a permanent membership, nations must pay a $1 billion fee, the proceeds of which Mr. Trump will personally control. The nations that have accepted his invitations as of Thursday morning include a host of monarchies, dictatorships, illiberal democracies, and countries led by fellow conservatives. One exception is Israel which, despite initial reservations over the inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in the Gaza Executive Board, announced Wednesday it will become a founding member.Several Persian Gulf states were quick to join Mr. Trump’s new peace board. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are all expected to participate in the formalization of the board on Thursday. The kings of Jordan and Morocco have similarly offered support for the board, and have accepted the president’s invitation to join. Mr. Trump says President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who has refused to negotiate in order to end the war in Ukraine, will also be joining the board.“I think it is quite possible,” Mr. Putin told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting Thursday. “We have discussed such options before with the representatives of the U.S. administration, and today a meeting and a conversation on this topic is planned in Moscow.”Mr. Trump has said that his new organization “might” replace the functions of the United Nations, which he says has never “lived up” to the potential it had in the wake of World War II. “I believe you gotta let the U.N. continue because the potential is so great,” he told reporters at a press conference earlier this week. So far, every permanent member of the U.N. Security Council except the Russian Federation has declined to join Mr. Trump’s board. Instead, the group includes nations that are far more likely to comply with the president’s foreign policy demands. The foreign minister of Turkey, Hakan Fidan, will attend the signing ceremony on Thursday. He is representing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who for years has refused to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos. Other autocracies such as Belarus and Egypt, as well as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, plan to join Mr. Trump’s new board. The Board of Peace itself represents a coterie of allies Mr. Trump has made across the world. President Milei of Argentina — the libertarian economist who is an acolyte of Mr. Trump — plans to join. Western liberal democracies have broadly declined to be a part of Mr. Trump’s board, however. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden have all publicly said that their nations will not be joining the group. Australia, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Spain, and the European Union have all yet to publicly respond to Mr. Trump’s invitation. The United Kingdom did not take part in Thursday’s signing over “concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace,” Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said.Other aspects of the Gaza peace plan are not as expansive as Mr. Trump’s handpicked Board of Peace. Rather, the groups and boards announced as part of the rebuilding plan include former U.N. officials, intelligence officers, and professional diplomats. Mr. Trump’s “high representative” for Gaza is Nikolay Mladenov, the former U.N. representative for Middle East peace and foreign affairs minister of Bulgaria. Another European U.N. official, Sigrid Kaag, the incumbent U.N. representative for Middle East peace and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, is serving on the Gaza Executive Board in support of Mr. Mladenov.

Trump Inaugurates His New Board of Peace Populated by Autocrats, Kings, and Allies

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