Trump launches Board of Peace at signing ceremony in Davos

United States President Donald Trump has formally announced the charter of his so-called Board of Peace, a body for resolving international conflicts with a $1bn price tag for permanent membership.

The board, which Trump launched in a signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war on the strip.

But it appears the board, whose 11-page charter does not mention Gaza once, has morphed into something far more ambitious with the US leader saying it may extend its work to other global crises, a role traditionally performed by the United Nations.

“Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do,” Trump claimed on stage at the World Economic Forum before signing documents formally establishing the initiative. He was joined on stage by leaders, foreign ministers and other top officials representing 19 other countries, including Argentina, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Hungary, Morocco, Bahrain, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Some fear the Board of Peace will undermine the UN. Trump appeared to touch on those concerns in his opening remarks at the ceremony, saying the initiative would “work with many others, including the United Nations”, also listing other important diplomatic issues around the world.

“I’ve always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it,” Trump said.

He praised the work of US officials involved in the project for their efforts in establishing a ceasefire in Gaza. “We have peace in the Middle East. Nobody thought that was possible.”

He added that the board was going to be “very successful in Gaza” and “we can spread out to other things as we succeed with Gaza”.

‘Board of action’

In remarks after Trump’s comments, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the board’s priority was making sure the ceasefire in Gaza endures but the possibilities for the organisation were “endless”.

“This is not just a Board of Peace. This is a board of action, just like President Trump is a president of action,” he said.

“This is a group of leaders that are about action.”

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and real estate developer, outlined details about the Board of Peace’s development plans in Gaza without mentioning plans for a path towards a Palestinian state.

The “number one thing is going to be security. Obviously, we’re working very closely with the Israelis to figure out a way to de-escalation, and the next phase is working with Hamas on demilitarisation,” Kushner said.

“Without security, nobody’s going to make investments, nobody’s gonna come build there. We need investments in order to start giving jobs,” he said.

The Board of Peace wants to use “free market principles” to shift Gaza away from dependence on foreign aid, Kushner said, showing a map of the Gaza Strip divided into “residential” and “coastal tourism mixed” zones.

The plan includes building 100,000 housing units in Rafah as well as “New Gaza”, Kushner said, showing a rendering of high-rise coastal towers.

“In the Middle East, they build cities like this – two, three million people – in three years, so stuff like this is very doable if we make it happen,” Kushner said.

He urged both sides in the Gaza conflict to “do our best to try working together”, calling for a change in “mindset” and “behaviours” in the region.

“Everyone wants to live peacefully,” he said. “If we believe peace is possible, then peace really can be possible.”

The event also featured Ali Shaath, the head of a future technocratic Palestinian government in Gaza, announcing that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza will open in both directions next week.

‘Most prestigious board ever’

The Board of Peace will be structured with Trump as its chairman and a “founding executive council” at the top, which includes Rubio, Kushner, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, US envoy Steve Witkoff, US Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gabriel, World Bank Group President Ajay Banga and Marc Rowan, CEO of investment firm Apollo Global Management.

According to reports, 50 to 60 countries have been invited to join the board, and up to 25 have agreed to sign on.

Permanent membership on the board, which Trump has billed as “the most prestigious board ever formed”, will require a contribution of $1bn. US officials have reportedly said such contributions are voluntary although countries would be expected to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction efforts.

The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they would be joining the board. Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said it had accepted Trump’s invitation.

Other countries that have agreed to join include Morocco, Argentina, Hungary, Armenia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Belarus. China, India, Japan, Thailand and many European nations have yet to respond to their invitations.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the UK opted out of signing on Thursday, joining a growing list of European refusals that includes France, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia.

UK’s ‘concerns about’ Putin

The UK has “concerns about President [Vladimir] Putin being part of something which is talking about peace when we have still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine”, Cooper told the BBC when asked about Trump’s board.

Questions have been raised about why the Russian president – and other leaders wanted for war crimes like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – have been invited to join the board and the powers it would hand to Trump as inaugural chairman of the board.

David Wearing, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex, told Al Jazeera that the board was “clearly an attempt to render the UN obsolete” and position Trump “in a kind of monarchical or imperial position as the chairman of this new UN”.

Russian state media reported on Thursday that Putin was ready to send $1bn to the Board of Peace to support the Palestinian people and the idea of spending frozen Russian assets to fund the contribution had been discussed with Washington.

Putin, who was due to host Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for talks in Moscow on Thursday, has said he is still consulting with Moscow’s “strategic partners” before deciding to commit.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has agreed to join the board after his office had earlier criticised the composition of a subordinate Palestinian technocratic committee tasked with overseeing Gaza.

However, there is no Palestinian representative on the Board of Peace.

Palestinians in Gaza overlooked

As several countries get on board, Palestinians in Gaza are less optimistic about the initiative, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said, reporting from Gaza on Thursday.

“There is a sense that runs deep among Palestinians that Palestinians are being discussed as a problem to be managed, not as people with rights to be fully addressed,” Abu Azzoum said.

“People on the ground believe the formation of the new Board of Peace feels detached from their reality.”

Palestinians “felt that turning a new chapter does not sound as easy as the Americans think”, he added.

In his remarks on Thursday, Trump praised the amount of aid that had flowed into Gaza since the ceasefire was agreed – comments that are starkly at odds with the reality on the ground amid repeated warnings from the UN and international aid organisations of dire shortages of food, water, medicines and other supplies entering the enclave.