Name: A billionaire's club? The odd mix of world leaders signing up for Trump's 'Board of Peace' | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-22T17:04:15.000Z
Duration: 12 min 37 s
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Donald Trump is due to preside over a ceremony on Thursday celebrating his proposal for a so called Board of Peace.

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Now, this was originally part of his Gaza peace plan, meant to oversee the ceasefire and reconstruction in the Palestinian territory.

He's now expanding the board's mission to broker solutions to global conflicts.

And he's invited dozens of nations and leaders to pay billions to join us.

President Donald Trump has long distrusted international institutions.

We just created the Board of Peace, which I think is going to be amazing.

I wish we didn't need a Board of Peace, but

the United nations and you know, with all the wars I settled, the United nations never helped me on one war.

The Board of Peace was originally supposed to be part of phase two of Trump's Gaza peace plan.

Along with an executive board and a team of Palestinian technologists.

Technocrats, the board would oversee difficult aspects of the peace plan, like disarming Hamas and beginning reconstruction in Gaza.

But now it's become a work in progress with an expanding mission.

It seems that Trump himself is the only one who really knows what's happening.

As the invitations go out, he is the lifetime chairman of the board.

Even the White House webpage on the board still refers to the reconstruction of Gaza.

But the US has sent out a draft proposal to world leaders, saying it will embark on a bold new approach to resolving global conflict.

There's a $1 billion fee to become a permanent member.

The list of who's been invited to join contains an odd mix of world leaders.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already accepted.

There's Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country is fighting a bloody war with R.

Several countries have already signaled they won't take part or have said flat out no, including traditional US Allies France, Italy and Norway.

The United nations has failed to stop or even mitigate multiple conflicts in recent years, including Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.

Time will tell if Trump's Board of Peace can do better or if it becomes a billionaires club where nations and leaders pay to play.

We're going to talk about this with DW's Middle east analyst Shani Rosannis, who's here in the studio with me.

We're going to have a look, first of all at the countries that have been invited to Trump's Board of Peace so far so we can See here on this map in light blue, we're going to see the countries that have been invited by Trump to join the Board of Peace.

In dark blue, we're seeing the 23 countries that are, that have already accepted the invitation.

So, Shani, let's talk about first of all, the reason for this.

Why is Trump setting up this Board of Peace?

It started as an initiative to rebuild Gaza and it was there.

The idea was because of the mass devastation and the mass amounts of money needed to rebuild Gaza that would need a very strong commitment and involvement from high level leaders in the world.

And I think Trump fell in love with the idea.

And you know, he sees himself as a president of pe also is very happy to weaken some of the international bodies he already, that are already existing.

You know, Trump and the US has withdrawn from more than 66 international bodies that are regulated by the UN and not only.

So for him, it became, you know, an all encompassing idea of how he restructures the world in his vision.

And he is the almighty leader of this board.

Even after his presidency is, is, is done.

And so it's not, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a surprise that when we look at the participants of those who have agreed to come on, we see a lot of his allies like Lukashenko, like Orban, like, you know, Meli in Argentina.

But then on the other hand, when you look at those who are either, you know, fall out, refusing or sitting out, you see, and

their hesitance, of course, you see a lot of the known power dynamics we're seeing happening in the world, mostly European countries who are very hesitant because this is weakening the UN de facto.

Because, for example, you know, if countries bring 1 million to the table for Trump, where will they bring the money for the UN institutions, for example?

And the UN has a very clear regulation, they have very clear, you know, laws and bodies that have, say for many different countries, first and foremost China and Russia, that have their veto in the Security Council, which they won't be having here.

Why would they join, even though we know they have been invited.

So, of course, Trump, I think is very good, you know, and he's not just in rhetorics.

He's also very perceptive in recognizing the weaknesses in the international existing organizations.

But he is not too good in trying to fine tune the solutions either as a reform of the existing bodies or in the restructure of new bodies that will be still democratic and open and, you know, constructive in Their in their work.

Let's talk about the structure of this board.

Tell us how it would actually work on a practical level.

So what we're seeing is that Trump is taking a model that is very much similar to business model that we would see.

You know, this is a board not by accident.

So these are basically the key stakeholders in the game.

They are the ones also footing the bill, they are giving the money.

And under that, underneath that we will have the executive level of, of Trump's board which is Marco Rubio, Kushner and Witkoff.

There are his closest aides and also heads of.

And underneath that there's going to be the executive board for Gaza.

He is a Bulgarian, a very well known diplomat that is also very well established in the region in the Middle east, working for many years already from the United Arab Emirates.

He is the one in charge of the Technocrat Committee who is basically a gathering of 20 Palestinians who were vetted and approved by Israel to be running Gaza in the day after.

And they would also be relying heavily on the International Stabilization Force, basically armed troops from international, different, you know, from different countries in the world.

They would need to be taking over the security and demilitarization of Gaza and Hamas in order for the technocrats committee to actually be successful in rebuilding Gaza.

But what we've been seeing, that this very, you know, complex tower is actually being built from the first floor down instead of securing the basis.

Because now on the ground in Gaza there's still very, very little know about the International Stabilization Force, who is going to join it?

Will it even, you know, Israel is completely against it.

It's not showing any signs of willing to withdraw and Israel is still attacking in Gaza.

The situation on the ground for Palestinians has changed very little despite the very big ceremonies and the big names we're seeing here.

Lets explore this with Heber Ali, who is a journalist and director of the UN Charter Reform Coalition.

It's a group calling for change in the United Nations.

This sounds like Donald Trump's attempt to either replace or circumvent the UN which has become increasingly ineffective as an organization that's campaigned for change at the UN Is this something you welcome?

No, we certainly do welcome the desire for change at the UN but not in this way.

What Trump is doing is putting a nail in the coffin of the un.

And yes, there is justification or there is merit in his justification that the UN has been ineffective.

But if we believe the UN is ineffective, and

by the way, the UN is in part ineffective because of the actions of the United States, then let's fix the un.

But the answer is not putting responsibility for maintaining peace and security in the hands of one individual who sets up an exclusive club, names himself chairman for life and charges a $1 billion membership fee, as you just heard.

And I do believe that if this board is legitimized by world leaders, it sets a very, very dangerous precedent.

You say if it's wrong, then let's fix it rather than go round it.

But haven't we seen over the UN's lifetime that it is dominated by the Security Council?

Members of the Security Council are now causing problems all over the world.

Well, maybe the answer is to give it some competition.

We've seen this president bully NATO's 30 odd members into increasing their military spending.

Why wouldn't he be able to bully members of this board, or indeed the UN into seeing the world a differently and being a little more effective?

Well, again, I would say that the reason the UN isn't effective is because of certain members of its Security Council, and

And so setting up an alternative body doesn't fix that problem.

I think there are certainly challenges in trying to reform the un, but

And if we are to give President Trump credit, it is that the current situation has pushed in particular European leaders so far against the wall that they are now ready to be more ambitious and more courageous in trying to reform a system that we all know has not been fit for purpose for some time.

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A billionaire's club? The odd mix of world leaders signing up for Trump's 'Board of Peace' | DW News

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