Is the US Board of Peace Aimed at Undermining the UN?
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2026 (IPS)
Judging by the mixed signals coming out of the White House, is the Board of Peace, a creation of President Donald Trump, eventually aimed at replacing the UN Security Council or the United Nations itself?
At a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last week, Trump formally ratified the Charter of the Board — establishing it as “an official international organization”.
Trump, who will be serving as the Board’s Chairman, was joined by Founding Members* “representing countries around the world who have committed to building a secure and prosperous future for Gaza that delivers lasting peace, stability, and opportunity for its people.”
Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS President Trump’s “Board of Peace” is being designed as a kind of global alliance akin to the “coalition of the willing” that fraudulently tried to give legitimacy to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Trump, he said, is recruiting submissive governments to fall in line with his leadership for pushing the planet ever more in the direction of war for domination and plunder.
The price that members of the Orwellian-named “Board of Peace” will pay is much more than the sought amount upwards of $1 billion each. In a global gangster mode, Trump is making plans and putting up structures on imperial whim, he pointed out.
“At the same time, the methods to his madness are transparent as he seeks to create new mechanisms for U.S. domination of as much of the world as possible”.
Trump continues to push the boundaries of doublespeak that cloaks U.S. agendas for gaining economic and military leverage over other countries. The gist of the message on behalf of Uncle Sam is: “no more Mr. Nice Guy.”
Whereas Trump’s predecessors in the White House have often relied on mere doubletalk and lofty rhetoric to obscure their actual priorities and agendas, Trump has dispensed with euphemisms enough to make crystal clear that he believes the U.S. government is the light of the world that all others should fall in line behind, said Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”
Asked about the Board of Peace, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters last week: “Let’s be clear. We are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 2803, which as you will recall, welcomed the creation of the Board of Peace for Gaza”.
And as you know, he said, part of that resolution and the plan put forward by President Trump talked about the UN leading on humanitarian aid delivery.
“I think we have delivered a massive amount of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as much as we’ve been able to allow. And we’ve talked about the restrictions, but you know how much more we’ve been able to do since the ceasefire. As part of that, we’ve worked very well with the US authorities, and we will continue to do so.”
The UN, Dujarric reaffirmed, remains the only international organization with universal membership. “We’ve obviously saw the announcements made in Davos. The Secretary-General’s work continues with determination to implement the mandates given to us, all underpinned by international law, by the charter of the UN. I mean, our work continues.”
Asked about the similarities between the UN logo and the logo of the Board of Peace, he said he saw no copyright or trademark infringements.
In a statement released last week, Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the United States played a leading role in establishing the UN. Now, US President Donald Trump is undermining and defunding large parts of it.
For the past year, he said, the US government has taken a sledgehammer to UN programs and agencies because the Trump administration believes the institution is “anti-American” and has a “hostile agenda.”
In UN negotiations, US officials have tried to purge words like “gender,” “climate,” and “diversity” from resolutions and statements. Diplomats have described to Human Rights Watch how US officials aggressively oppose human rights language they see as “woke” or politically correct, he said.
In an apparent attempt to sideline the UN Security Council, Trump has proposed a so-called Board of Peace that he personally would preside over. Trump has reportedly offered seats on his board to leaders of abusive governments, including Belarus, China, Hungary, Israel, Russia, and Vietnam, Charbonneau pointed out.
Originally the Board of Peace was meant to oversee the administration of Gaza following over two years of onslaught and destruction by Israeli forces, with which the United States was complicit. But the board’s charter doesn’t even mention Gaza, suggesting that Trump’s ambitions for this body have expanded enormously since first conceived.
The board’s proposed charter doesn’t mention human rights. And it makes clear that Trump, as board chairman, would have supreme authority “to adopt resolutions or other directives” as he sees fit.
A seat on the Board of Peace doesn’t come cheap: there’s a US$1 billion membership fee. Some, like French President Emmanuel Macron, already turned down an offer to join. Trump responded with a threat to significantly increase tariffs on French wine and champagne.
“The UN system has its problems, but it’s better than a global Politburo. Rather than paying billions to join Trump’s board, governments should focus on strengthening the UN’s ability to uphold human rights,” he declared.
Elaborating further, Solomon said the entire “Board of Peace” project is a dangerous farce that seeks to reconstitute a unipolar world that has already largely fallen apart during this century in economic terms.
The criminality of Trump’s approach, supported by the Republican majority in Congress, is backed up by the nation’s military might. More than ever, U.S. foreign policy has very little to offer the world other than gangsterism, extortion and blackmail – along with threats of massive violence that sometimes turn into military attacks that shred all semblance of international law.
Every U.S. president in this century, as before, has disregarded actual international law and substituted the preferences of its military-industrial complex for foreign policy. Trump has taken that policy to an unabashed extreme, shamelessly adhering to George Orwell’s dystopian credo of “War Is Peace” while pushing to wreck what’s left of a constructive international order.
Incidentally, when Indonesia’s mercurial leader Sukarno decided to quit the UN and form the Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) as an alternative, it did not last very long, as Sukarno’s successor, Suharto “resumed” Indonesia’s participation in the UN.
No lasting harm was done to the UN. And all was forgotten and forgiven.
In a further clarification, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters the Board of Peace has been authorized by the Security Council for its work on Gaza – strictly for that. “
“We’re not talking about the wider operations or any of the aspects that have been in the media for the last several days. What we’re talking about is the work on Gaza”.
“As you know, we have welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza and measures to support it, including the Board of Peace, and we’ll continue to work with all parties on the ground to make sure that the ceasefire is upheld. That is about Gaza.”
The larger aspects, he said, are things for anyone wanting to participate in this grouping to consider. Obviously, the UN has its own Charter, its own rules, and you can do your own compare and contrast between the respective organizations.
“As you’re well aware, he pointed out, the UN has coexisted alongside any number of organizations. There are regional organizations, subregional organizations, various defence alliances around the world. Some of them, we have relationship agreements with. Some of them, we don’t.
“We would have to see in terms of details what the Board of Peace becomes as it actually is established to know what sort of relationship we would have with it,” declared Haq.
The participants* at the signing event in Geneva last week included:
- • Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, minister of the prime minister’s court, Bahrain
• Nasser Bourita, minister of foreign affairs, Morocco
• Javier Milei, president, Argentina
• Nikol Pashinyan, prime minister, Armenia
• Ilham Aliyev, President, Azerbaijan
• Rosen Zhelyazkov, prime minister, Bulgaria
• Viktor Orban, prime minister, Hungary
• Prabowo Subianto, president, Indonesia
• Ayman Al Safadi, minister of foreign affairs, Jordan
• Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, president, Kazakhstan
• Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, president, Kosovo
• Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, prime minister, Pakistan
• Santiago Peña, president, Paraguay
• Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, president, Qatar
• Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, minister of foreign affairs, Saudi Arabia
• Hakan Fidan, minister of foreign affairs, Turkey
• Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, special envoy to the U.S. for the UAE
• Shavkat Mirziyoyev, president, Uzbekistan
• Gombojavyn Zandanshatar, prime minister, Mongolia
A long list of countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy and other European nations, were absent from the signing, and some have specifically rejected the invitation.
IPS UN Bureau Report