United States President Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace', which was initially proposed as a mechanism focused on ending the Israel-Hamas war and rebuilding
Gaza, is taking shape with ambitions to have a far broader mandate of other global crises. Is Trump seeking to constitute the grouping as a potential rival to the United Nations?
What Is Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’?
As part of the second phase of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the US unveiled the 'Board of Peace'. According to the Trump administration, the Board of Peace will play an essential role in fulfilling Trump's 20-point plan of providing strategic oversight, mobilising international resources, and ensuring accountability as "Gaza transitions from conflict to peace and development".
The White House last week announced forming a founding executive board to operationalise the Board of Peace's vision. The members of the executive committee include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former British prime minister Tony Blair, US special envoy to the Middle-East Steve Witkoff, businessman and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and World Bank president Ajay Banga.
From Gaza to Global Crises: A Widening Mandate
The grouping was initially dubbed as a way to oversee the reconstruction and governance of Gaza. However, Trump's letter to different leaders of the world, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, indicated that the new body's ambition will be wider. In the letter, Trump has said the board would seek to solidify peace in the Middle East and that it would embark on a "bold new approach to resolving Global Conflict" as well.
The Financial Times, quoting from the charter of the board, said it is "an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict," clearly signalling a wider role in conflicts around the world. "Durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed," the newspaper quoted from the charter.
The top level of the board will consist "exclusively" of heads of states under Trump's leadership, the newspaper quoted a White House official as saying.
Will Trump Get Global Support?
Trump's idea is "aspirational," however, the US President and his advisers believe that it is possible, a senior US official was quoted as saying by Associated Press. The official suggested that the idea was not to replace the United Nations, but galvanise the global body into action.
However, Trump’s apparent aspirations to turn to the Board of Peace into an international institution that could provide an alternative to the United Nations is sure to be controversial and opposed by numerous countries, including China and Russia, which hold veto power in the UN Security Council. The countries have significant interests in opposing any radical change in the world order. Smaller nations are also likely to have objections as the UN system has given them at least a voice in major international decisions, backed by bigger powers, since the end of the Second World War.
“This is a US shortcut in an attempt to wield its veto power on world affairs,” Daniel Forti, head of UN affairs at the International Crisis Group, told the agency. “It allows the US to really take the role it has on the Gaza-Israel file, where it’s able to shape things to its will and try to extend that to other conflicts.” He added that this idea “would give world leaders involved a sort of mechanism to try and sidestep longstanding agreements around sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for transactional deals.”
Trump vs the United Nations
The UN General Assembly president, Annalena Baerbock, did avoid a direct criticism of Trump's move, but seemed to warn that the UN remains the only institution with the moral and legal capacity to bring together all nations. Questioning that role, she said, risks plunging the world into “very, very, dark times”.
For the unversed, the Trump administration has often been at odds with the United Nations as it zeroed in on eliminating billions of dollars in funding to international organisations and humanitarian assistance at large. Trump and his allies have accused the global body of not reaching its potential and of having “bloated” and redundant agencies that push “woke” ideology. They have repeatedly expressed frustration with the United Nations and its associated organisations, commissions and advisory boards.
Trump's 'Peace' Record
On multiple occasions, Trump has claimed that he has ended eight wars across the world; however, facts point at a different direction. The peace deals, touted as major diplomatic victories by the Trump administration, have faltered in the recent past. Thailand and Cambodia were once again on the verge of war in December last year, just months after the leaders of the two countries had signed a US-backed peace proposal in the presence of US President Donald Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Kuala Lumpur.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi had also accused Rwanda of violating its commitments to a US-brokered peace deal, aimed at ending years of conflict in the country's mineral-rich east, just days after attending a signing ceremony in Washington last month.
Trump's team announced the beginning of the second phase of Gaza ceasefire plan earlier this week, as the first phase remains incomplete. The ceasefire took effect on October 10 last year as Israel and Hamas agreed to a US plan, halting two years of fighting. However, both sides accuse each other of violations, with Israel saying that it targeted militants, and Palestinian authorities saying that civilians are being killed.
The pact included the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel. On the contrary, Hamas continues to hold the remains of the last hostage — an Israeli police officer killed in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.
The US President has himself accepted that he thought that the Russia-Ukraine war would be the "easiest" one to solve, however, it was not the case.
Whether the ‘Board of Peace’ emerges as a meaningful innovation in conflict resolution or becomes another ambitious but short-lived experiment will ultimately depend on two factors: global buy-in and outcomes on the ground. Given Washington's ties with the countries across the globe, given the tariff tussle and the Greenland issue, it is yet to be seen if the group gets broad participation beyond Gaza. If if fails to gather international support, the group might end up as another instrument of US influence.
