Name: Donald Trump launches 'Board of Peace' with world leaders | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-22T17:07:05.000Z
Duration: 10 min 53 s
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Let's take you to Christian Fraser, Davos.

Christian, what an extraordinary couple of days we've had with these decisions being made that could affect large swathes of the world.

Let's go through them, shall we, one by one.

And we should start with what's happened in the past few hours.

Take us through what we've actually learned about that this morning.

Well, I think you've characterized it very well.

It's been a dizzying few days here in Davos, and

the German Chancellor, Friedrich Metz, was talking about that this morning.

The world order, he says, is changing at breath, at a breathtaking speed.

And I guess an element of that is this Board of Peace, which some are concerned is replacing the mandate of the United nations and the overarching theme and responsibilities of the U.N.

i suppose, charitably, you could say that the president is a man of action.

He is driving things forward on a whole range of issues.

But one of the concerns, I think, all the way along here is under what mandate is he doing this?

And there's also a lack of detail, Lucy, wherever you look, in whatever he's driving, whether it be on the Middle east and Gaza, which of course, is fiendishly complicated, on Venezuela and how the oil is being sold and where the money goes and how it's reinvested.

On Ukraine, which we're told today is just one beat away from an agreement between Putin and Zelensky.

And on Iran, a lot of detail that we don't know.

And I think that is that is the concern, that a president who wants action is working outside the construct of the UN and providing us with not enough detail on how things will move forward and what sort of oversight there will be over that.

But let's have a listen in the first instance to what he says about this Board of Peace and how it will operate.

And now we have one of the most important meetings of all, the official formation of what is known as the Board of Peace.

I want to thank Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and their extraordinary work.

We've settled eight wars, and I believe another one's coming pretty soon.

That is the one that I thought was going to be an easy one.

It's turned out to be probably the most difficult.

Last month, 29,000 people died, mostly soldiers.

29,000, 27,000 in the month before 26,000 in the month before that.

But we have meetings where we think we're making a lot of progress.

China has said in the last hour that it has had an invitation to join the Board of Peace.

The Americans are saying that President Putin, he's already agreed that he will join it.

That is still to be confirmed, incidentally, by the Kremlin.

But are they going to be happy to sit alongside Donald Trump with him there as the chairman in a subordinate role, him there as the commander in chief, dictating what happens within the board of Peace?

And then, of course, there is the Europeans.

The Foreign Secretary for the uk, Yvette Cooper, was saying today that they're going to take a beat and see how this board is going to work.

Of course, they feel very uncomfortable that President Putin has been invited to it.

They see that as normalizing his behavior and a real paradox, if you will, that the, the man who's waging war in Ukraine is sitting there on a board of peace.

So all that to be discussed tonight within the remit of the European Council summit in Brussels.

But Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, says, look, give it a chance, but

don't be cynical about this, because the president wants to move things in the right direction.

And so often he says, we come to these summits like this one here in Davos, people talk, it becomes a talking shop, and

Now we have this Board of Peace, who I believe possibilities are endless, obviously, with a focus, first and foremost, on making sure that this peace deal in Gaza becomes enduring.

And I know this president has it as his highest priority and will give it everything he has to make sure that this is successful.

I also want to acknowledge the extraordinary leaders that are here today.

This is a board of action, just like President Trump is a president of action.

A lot of times, people like to give speeches.

I've been to many of these forums, and they're not useless and they're not, you know, not.

But oftentimes in international affairs, we often find ourselves at events where people are reading these scripted statements, these strongly worded letters that they put out, but

This is a group of leaders that are about action.

And the President of the United States is a president of action, of getting things done.

And today is the beginning of that, of a new era and a new stage that we think is so important.

As a model to the rest of the world of what is possible.

And clearly the focus is right now on Gaza and making sure that the plan that's about to be presented to you here today, this vision for the future of Gaza, this vision for the future of the region, is not just possible and promising.

It is our destiny if we put the time and the effort that it requires, as I know this board will do.

But I also think it will serve as an example of what's possible in other parts of the world without losing focus on what's before us now.

This is what's possible for other places and other conflicts that seem impossible to solve right now.

So the US Very optimistic about this border peace.

Marco Rubio and President Trump in particular.

President Trump saying he hopes this will forge what he called a glorious and everlasting peace for the Middle East.

We will take you live to Jerusalem very, very shortly.

But, Christian, we must update our viewers on the other big development that's happening right now in Davos, and

that's that President Zelensky, he wasn't going to come because of the energy crisis back at home, but

What do we expect to come out of these talks that he's going to be having with President Trump?

Yeah, his diary has been reformatted because he'd made it clear he wasn't coming because he didn't think he was going to get a sit down with Donald Trump.

And he's been busy dealing with the energy crisis at home, which of course has been exacerbated in recent days by the Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure.

But he will be mindful that Steve Wyckoff is heading off to Moscow to talk to Vladimir Putin.

And he will also know that those who want to influence the president have to sit in front of him.

So he's helter skeltered his way here to Davos this afternoon.

I think they're meeting around now and they will be getting into the detail of this agreement, which the Americans say is only one step away from being concluded.

We should again urge some caution on that because the Americans have said that before.

But here's what Steve Witkoff had to say about it.

I think in the beginning of this process, there was a little bit of confusion.

I think it was important that we go there because we're at the end now and I actually am optimistic.

I spent the evening with David last night with General Butanov who's now Vice President Butanov, and

Rustam, they've been amazing, by the way.

You have to the Ukrainian people here, you have an amazing negotiating team.

I don't know how much, but it could be 100 hours together since Geneva.

And I think we've got it down to one issue, and

we have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it's solvable.

So if both sides want to solve this, we're going to get it solved.

And I told the President that last night.