After nearly blowing up more than 80 years of friendship with America’s closest allies by threatening tariffs against them in a fit of pique over his desire to “acquire” Greenland, President Donald Trump closed out his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week by trying to replace the United Nations with something more like his Florida social club — membership dues included.
At a signing ceremony emcee’d by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and featuring stagecraft reminiscent of the television reality show that cemented Trump as a pop culture figure years before he mounted his first campaign for the presidency, Trump and a ragtag group of autocrats, representatives of Middle East monarchies, and other leaders from a group of seemingly random nations seeking his favor — plus ex-British prime minister Tony Blair — inked documents launching the “Board of Peace” that had been teased since he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a U.S.-brokered deal for a ceasefire in Israel’s two-year-old war against Hamas in Gaza.
Seated in front of a large screen showing a logo that appeared to be ripped off from the United Nations’ own branding but with North America centered on it, the president and his new friends took turns putting their signatures on what was described as the group’s charter before each of them held their documents up for the cameras in Trumpian fashion.
Trump, who the organization’s charter lists as its chairman — a position he can hold for the rest of his life if he so desires — said it “has the chance to be one of the most consequential bodies ever created” and “end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful, everlasting, and glorious peace” in the Middle East region.
In theory, the ceremony was yet another step in implementing the deal hammered out between American, Israeli and Hamas negotiators over months of talks. The organization, as originally envisioned and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, is supposed to spearhead implementation of the ceasefire agreement and set up a new civilian administration in Gaza.
Had Trump simply gone along with the plan he and Netanyahu rolled out last year, his “Board of Peace” might have gotten a better reception from traditional American allies.
But in the months since it was unveiled, as he has continued to bully his country’s closest friends with threats of tariffs — and in the case of Greenland, invasion — he has expanded the group’s supposed remit to something more in line with his outsized ambitions to position himself as a transformational American leader and an indispensable man of world history.
Rather than a purpose-built body to oversee the Gaza ceasefire and reconstruction as intended by the U.N., the charter signed by Trump and his new friends make no mention of the Gaza conflict or the fact that the board’s mandate is limited to Gaza and expires at the end of 2027.
Instead, it describes itself as “an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict” that is composed only of “States invited to participate by the Chairman” — that’s Trump — and willing to donate $1 billion for a permanent membership (unless Trump decides to kick a member out later on).
Trump will also serve as the first American representative to the board — a position that will pass to his successor as president — but he’ll remain the board’s chairman for life, which could well give him the ability to remove the United States from the organization in the event he is succeeded by someone he doesn’t particularly like.
If the group’s mission statement sounds decidedly similar to the United Nations, it’s because that’s what Trump has been envisioning in the months since his Gaza ceasefire triumph.
According to people close to him, he truly sees himself as a peacemaker nonpareil who should have been a no-brainer decision for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize — an honor he covets largely because it was once awarded to his forever nemesis Barack Obama.
And had Trump simply gotten on with the task of setting up the Board of Peace as initially envisioned — for Gaza and Gaza alone — he might have had a shot at next year’s award had he not spent months upon months openly lusting for it.
But having alienated the Norwegian Nobel Committee by engaging in an uncouth campaign for the prize that has been given to some of the world’s most renowned statesmen, the president is now embarked on a quest to render it — and other organizations that have rejected him — irrelevant.
That’s why the traditional U.S. allies and fellow U.N. Security Council members such as France and the United Kingdom have bowed out of Trump’s new group, citing fears that he’s positioning it as an alternative to the U.N. itself.
And though Canada never appeared to be much interested in the new body, Trump made a show of rescinding Ottawa’s invitation in a Truth Social post on Thursday after Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s pointed speech at Davos earlier in the week.
Instead, he’s now surrounded himself with he called “the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time,” consisting of leaders from Argentina, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Qatar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Paraguay and Pakistan.
He also invited Chinese and Russian dictators Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for good measure, with Putin indicating this week that he’d accept if he can pay Trump’s billion-dollar initiation fee with funds that have been frozen to punish him for the extremely not-board-of-peace-like act of launching an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2021.
While several of the countries are NATO members, none are nuclear powers (though he’s invited Russia and China to join if they pay the billion-dollar fee). And none are counted among traditional world powers or even as close allies of the U.S.
But for Trump, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the leaders who are joining his new club say nice things about him and share his disdain for “woke” concerns such as human rights — as well as his disdain for elections (when he loses).
They will praise him and support whatever efforts he undertakes to bully countries into ending conflicts he can take credit for ending, Nobel Peace Prize be damned.
Whether this new organization’s plan for Gaza succeeds or not is yet to be seen. But as long as Trump can continue to take credit for whatever it does, he’ll be happy to participate surrounded by his dues-paying autocratic friends. And after alienating most of America’s closest allies even further this past week, his new paying customers may be all he has left.
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