{"id":423977,"date":"2026-01-23T00:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/423977\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T00:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:53:09","slug":"trumps-board-of-peace-launches-into-a-warring-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/423977\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Board of Peace launches into a warring world"},"content":{"rendered":"

This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK\u2019s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up<\/a> to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Fears that Donald Trump\u2019s newly minted \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d might supplant the United Nations appear to have been premature. The US president has touted his brainchild as \u201can international organization\u201d that aims to \u201csecure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict\u201d. This, of course, is a mission that is central to the UN\u2019s raison d’etre. <\/p>\n

But Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, the UN\u2019s secretary-general, is unlikely to lose much sleep over Trump\u2019s new vehicle for global governance. Just 19 countries have signed up of the 60 invited, ranging from Argentina to Uzbekistan. From Europe, just Hungary and Bulgaria have joined. None of the major European powers were represented, neither were Russia or China. <\/p>\n

The board\u2019s charter<\/a> amounts to what must be one of the more bizarre documents doing the diplomatic round at the moment. Despite being set up and given a mandate by the UN security council as a vehicle to oversee the future governance and rebuilding of Gaza, you\u2019d search in vain in the charter for mentions of the embattled Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n

Instead it confers on the US president some extraordinary powers as chairman of the board. He can dictate who is eligible to join (just not, as we have seen, who actually joins). He will occupy the chair for as long as he wishes and has the power to choose his successor. He will choose when to meet and what to discuss. In the event of a decision before member states being tied, he gets a casting vote. <\/p>\n

Membership is for three years, and can be turned into a permanent seat for a fee of US$1 billion (\u00a3740 million). Funds will be controlled by the executive board, selected by the chairman, with a chief executive officer, nominated by the chairman. The chairman also has the power to remove or renew the tenure of members of the executive board.<\/p>\n

It is, writes Stefan Wolff, like a \u201cprivatised UN with one shareholder: the US president\u201d<\/a>. And it comes a week after Trump pulled the US out of 31 UN organisations, including the peace-building commission and the peace-building fund, as well as office of the special representative for children in armed conflict. Perhaps we\u2019ll see the Board of
\nPeace taking these roles on? <\/p>\n

More likely, it would seem, is that the transactional ethos which appears to run through Trump\u2019s foreign policy endeavours will persist in the Board of Peace\u2019s efforts to solve today\u2019s international crises. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have both been appointed to the executive board (alongside, among others, Tony Blair). Kushner presented the plan for the next phase of the Gaza plan, which will focus on decommissioning Hamas. <\/p>\n

Read more:
\n Donald Trump’s ‘board of peace’ looks like a privatised UN with one shareholder: the US president<\/a><\/p>\n

The launch of the Board of Peace took place on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos, a gathering which had appeared to have lost traction in recent years, but which has this week been the epicentre of global diplomacy. This has largely been thanks to Trump\u2019s threat to acquire Greenland from Denmark by fair means or foul. Given that Denmark (and the Greenlanders themselves) have resolutely insisted that the island is not for sale, fair means appear to have been ruled out and there was much consternation about what foul might mean and whether it would involve military action.<\/p>\n

Trump addressed the gathering on Wednesday, rowing back on his earlier threat to take Greenland by force. But it what was still clear that most leaders are coming to terms with the disintegration of the world order put in place in the aftermath of the second world war and the dawn of a new era dominated by great powers acting purely in their own interests. Or as Stephen Miller, Trump\u2019s ideologue in chief puts it, a world \u201cthat is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power\u201d. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to see how America\u2019s erstwhile close allies can resist this, writes Robert Dover<\/a>. Dover, an expert in international affairs at the University of Hull, with a focus on security and intelligence, sees just how intimately entwined the US and the rest of Nato are, particularly in terms of intelligence sharing and military cooperation. <\/p>\n

Still, he writes: \u201cThere is a dawning realisation that the US might be Europe\u2019s adversary, not ally.\u201d Or, as Canadian prime minister Mark Carney put it in his speech on January 20: \u201cWe are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.\u201d It\u2019s up to the rest of the world to decide how to face up to the new reality.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n Trump at Davos marks the start of a new era in world affairs<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Canadian<\/p>\n

Mark Carney\u2019s speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos has been hailed as \u2018epoch defining\u2019.
\n PA\/Gian Ehrenzeller<\/p>\n

Carney\u2019s speech, with its quotations from V\u00e1clav Havel and Thucydides, has been much praised. (Take a look at this piece<\/a> from Thucydides expert Neville Morley for a detailed look on what the ancient historian really meant by the line referenced by Carney.) One journalist even put it up there with Churchill\u2019s iron curtain speech after the second world war. <\/p>\n

There was, writes Mark Shanahan, professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, one venue and two speeches but Carney\u2019s \u201cleft Donald Trump in the dust\u201d. It was clear-sighted, determined, reasonable and fact-based. Trump, meanwhile, served up 70 minutes that had it not been for the teleprompter you could have taken for stream of consciousness, including the usual jibes against friend and foe alike and a medley of his own greatest hits, many of them imaginary. <\/p>\n

Shanahan contrasts the style and substance of the two leaders<\/a>, concluding that: \u201cOne leader donned the cloak of statesmanship at Davos this week. It wasn\u2019t Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n One venue, two speeches \u2013 how Mark Carney left Donald Trump in the dust in Davos<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump 2.0: one year in<\/p>\n

So busy a week has it been that we\u2019ve hardly had time to stop and notice that it marked a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term, promising to \u201cpreserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

He rode to victory in November 2024 thanks to a broad coalition with its core comprising what have become known as Maga voters \u2013 for his slogan that he will \u201cmake America great again\u201d. Prominent among those voters were farmers and small business owners in rural communities across the heartland of America: rust-belt and rural communities drawn to his promise of economic regeneration.<\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

US agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, talks to a pig farmer in Iowa, March 2025.
\n Cecilia Lynch\/USDA Photo\/Alamy Live News<\/p>\n

But a year own there are signs that these people are becoming increasingly disillusioned, writes Inderjeet Parmar<\/a>, an expert in US politics at City St George\u2019s, University of London. The mass deportations of migrants has deprived farmers of vital labour while Trump\u2019s regime of tariffs has increased costs for struggling families. With the midterms looming this November, the Republican party will be anxious that these crucial votes might not materialise.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n Signs that Trump’s economic policies are alienating his rural Maga base<\/a><\/p>\n

Tariffs have been at the heart of Trumpian economic policy over the first year of his second term. Economists Prachi Agarwal, Jodie Keane and Maximiliano Mendez-Parra of independent research organisation ODI Global assess<\/a> who are the winners from Trump\u2019s tariff regime and who have lost out. <\/p>\n

Read more:
\n After a year of Trump, who are the winners and losers from US tariffs?<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter<\/a> from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we\u2019ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK\u2019s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-423977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}