US President Donald Trump yesterday launched his Board of Peace, initially designed to cement Gaza’s rocky ceasefire but which he foresees taking a wider role worrying to other global powers, although he said it would work with the United Nations.
“Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do. And we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” Trump said, adding that the UN had great potential that had not been fully utilised.
Trump, who will chair the board, invited dozens of other world leaders to join, saying he wants it to address challenges beyond the stuttering Gaza ceasefire, stirring misgivings that it could undermine the UN’s role as the main platform for global diplomacy and conflict resolution.
While regional Middle East powers including Türkiye, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as major emerging nations such as Indonesia, have joined the board, global powers and traditional Western US allies have been more cautious.
Trump says permanent members must help fund with a payment of $1bn each, and Reuters could not immediately spot any representatives from governments of top global powers or from Israel or the Palestinian Authority at the signing ceremony.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the board’s focus would be on making sure the plan for peace in Gaza was fulfilled but that it could also “serve as an example of what’s possible in other parts of the world”.
Apart from the US, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council – the five nations with the most say over international law and diplomacy since the end of the Second World War – has yet committed to join.
Russia said late on Wednesday it was studying the proposal after Trump said it would join.
President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was willing to pay $1bn from frozen US assets in the US “to support the Palestinian people”, state media said.
France declined to join. Britain said it was not joining at present. China has not yet said whether it will do so.
The board’s creation was endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution as part of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, and UN spokesperson Rolando Gomez said yesterday that UN engagement with the board would only be in that context.
Israel, Argentina and Hungary, whose leaders are close allies of Trump and supporters of his approach to politics and diplomacy, have said they will join.
“There’s tremendous potential with the United Nations, and I think the combination of the Board of Peace with the kind of people we have here ... could be something very, very unique for the world,” said Trump, who has long disparaged the UN and other institutions of multilateral co-operation.
Board members also include Rubio, the US Gaza negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Kushner said the next 100 days we’re going to continue to just be heads down and focused on making sure this is implemented.
“We continue to be focused on humanitarian aid, humanitarian shelter, but then creating the conditions to move forward.”
After hosting a signing ceremony for the board, Trump invited his son-in-law Kushner to present development plans for Gaza, its densely populated cities and towns now in ruins from two years of war.
Kushner presented the audience with a slideshow depicting a “master plan” for what he termed a “New Gaza”, displayed on a colour-coded map with areas reserved for residential development, data centres and industrial parks.
The slides included an image of a Mediterranean coastline packed with glittering towers.
They suggested redevelopment would begin in Rafah in the south, an area under complete Israeli military control.
But they did not address key issues such as property rights or compensation for Palestinians who lost their homes, businesses and livelihoods during the war.
Nor did they address where displaced Palestinians might live during the rebuilding.
Kushner did not say who would fund the redevelopment, which would first require clearing an estimated 68 million tons of rubble and war debris.
&uuid=(email))