{"id":486985,"date":"2026-02-20T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486985\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T06:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:00:13","slug":"trump-pledges-10-billion-to-board-of-peace-in-first-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486985\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Pledges $10 Billion to ‘Board of Peace’ in First Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPresident Trump\u2019s \u201cBoard of Peace<\/a>\u201d features plenty of nations with records of human rights abuses and government corruption, and now it\u2019s racking up a whole lot of cash. Trump \u2014 who has profited immensely<\/a> off the presidency \u2014 announced on Thursday that he would be transferring $10 billion in taxpayer funds to the board, where nations like Israel, El Salvador, Turkey, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia will theoretically use it to effectuate peace in the Middle East \u2026 or something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn paper, the \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d will oversee the implementation of a Gaza<\/a> peace plan. The president has made clear through social media posts and public comments that he would like to see Gaza \u2014 where untold numbers of bodies lay buried beneath the wreckage of cities reduced to rubble \u2014 redeveloped as a \u201cTrump Riviera,\u201d as he put it last year, of the Middle East. This year at Davos, Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who holds no actual government position, presented plans to reshape the war-torn region into a coastal tourism destination ripe for international investment \u2014 and profit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump has charged member states a hefty fee<\/a> of $1 billion dollars to secure a place on the board, but it\u2019s unclear what that money will actually fund. What is obvious is that Trump, a longtime critic of the United Nations, is looking to create his own international coalition of nations that operate directly under his control. Russian President Vladimir Putin was invited to join, despite actively waging a catastrophic expansionist war against Ukraine. Several prominent American allies and Western nations have declined to entertain the farce. The Vatican rejected<\/a> an invitation earlier this week. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Ukraine, and several other nations have outright declined to join<\/a>, while scores of others have seemingly pretended their invite got lost in the mail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dissonance was on full display at the first official \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d gathering on Thursday in Washington, D.C., where \u2014 in the absence of America\u2019s historic allies \u2014 sycophantic world leaders lavished praise on the American president for convening this \u201cpeace\u201d coalition, which Trump exercises full control over.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tTo a soundtrack featuring Guns N\u2019 Roses\u2019 \u201cNovember Rain\u201d and Laura Branigan\u2019s \u201cGloria,\u201d the president posed for photos and touted financial commitments from participating nations. The meeting closed with the president banging a golden gavel before his personal anthem, \u201cY.M.C.A.,\u201d blasted over the venue\u2019s speakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKushner was there too, insisting<\/a> that \u201cpeople are not personally profiting from this.\u201d Nevertheless, concerns have already been raised that the president controlling the board as chairman in essential perpetuity \u2014 without term limits or other restrictions \u2014 means he will have access to the finances of the organization beyond the control and oversight of the U.S. government. Trump did not specify where exactly the $10 billion in pledged American funds would come from, and there\u2019s no indication that Congress has authorized the spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen you look at that compared to the cost of war, that\u2019s two weeks of fighting, it\u2019s a very small number. It sounds like a lot, but it\u2019s a very small number,\u201d the president said. Outside of the $1 billion dollar fee to join the board from member nations, the president noted that $7 billion additional dollars had been contributed by the group\u2019s members.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump used the\u00a0\u201cpeace\u201d meeting to announce that he would be making a decision regarding military action against Iran within the next \u201c10 days.\u201d In recent weeks, the U.S. military has built up<\/a> a massive military presence in the Middle East as they attempt to finalize a nuclear agreement with the nation. It wouldn\u2019t seem one would be necessary given that Trump claimed last year that the strike he ordered on Iran \u201cobliterated\u201d<\/a> their nuclear facilities, but alas.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe potential of renewed warfare in the region cast no pall over Trump\u2019s \u201cpeace\u201d event. The prime minister of Egypt referred<\/a> to Trump as his \u201cexcellency,\u201d a breach of typical protocol for U.S. presidents, who have historically refused titles and monikers associated with monarchical nobility. Kazakhstan\u2019s repressive President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev suggested<\/a> that the committee \u201cestablish a special President Trump award of the Board of Peace to recognize his outstanding efforts and achievements.\u201d No surprises there, given Trump\u2019s known fixation on receiving shiny objects in recognition of his greatness. In that vein, for some reason that was not abundantly clear to anyone there, FIFA President Gianni Infantino was present at the event, sporting a red \u201cUSA\u201d hat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEven as world leaders leaned into their designated gushing time, Trump seemed unwilling, or unable, to grant them his full attention. Throughout the more than two hour meeting, the president repeatedly<\/a> seemed to doze off at his seat as other heads of state and dignitaries addressed him.Trump Is Hijacking Billions in Taxpayer Money for His Made-Up \u2018Peace\u2019 Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump\u2019s \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d features plenty of nations with records of human rights abuses and government corruption,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[178350,1376,8766,43,89162,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-486985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-board-of-peace","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-gaza","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}