Trump as 'Peacemaker-in-Chief': What his Peace Council means for the UN

Leaked details of the draft charter state that he remains the life chairman of the Board even after he leaves office.

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Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

23.01.2026. 20:52h

Liz Doucet, BBC International Affairs Editor

"Together, we have the opportunity to end decades of suffering, to stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and to establish a magnificent, eternal peace for that region and for the entire world region."

That was the lofty promise of US President Donald Trump as he inaugurated the new Peace Council on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

A world filled with suffering and discord desperately wants to believe him.

But for many observers and officials in capitals around the world, it is further evidence of Trump's campaign to dismantle the post-war international architecture and replace it with new institutions - dominated by him.

"We will not allow anyone to drag us by the nose," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said firmly on social media.

But from Trump's biggest ally in Europe, Viktor Orban, came an enthusiastic eulogy: "If Trump, then peace."

What exactly will this Board, headed for life by Trump himself, do?

Could this really be an attempt to establish a mini version of the United Nations (UN)?

Power of the President of the Peace Committee

The idea, born last year during the American-led effort to end the war in Gaza and supported by a UN Security Council resolution, now has a much broader, much bigger, much more global ambition.

And it revolves around the president like an axis.

In leaked details of the draft charter, he remains the life chairman of the Board even after he leaves office.

According to the charter, his powers are limitless: he has the power to invite member countries or not; to establish or dissolve subsidiaries; and the mandate to appoint a successor whenever he decides to step down or if he becomes incapacitated.

If any other country wants to become a permanent member, the price for that is a staggering one billion dollars.

This latest bombshell news comes in an already dizzying month.

In a few short weeks, the Venezuelan leader has already been captured, Trump has threatened to prepare for military action against Iran, and is not backing down from his demand to take over Greenland, causing shockwaves throughout Europe and beyond.

At the inauguration of the Board in Davos, 19 countries from all corners of the compass appeared - from Argentina to Azerbaijan, from former Soviet republics to Gulf kingdoms.

Many more have reportedly "agreed to join".

"In this group, I like every one of them," Trump grinned as he measured off the leaders and officials whose names are now on this Board or the executive board levels behind it.

Many more potential members have politely declined the offer for now.

"This is an agreement that raises much broader issues, and we are also concerned that Russian President Putin is part of something that is about peace," explained British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Trump says Russia is part of the team, although the message from Moscow has been that they are only "consulting partners" for now.

"As the text now reads, we are not joining," Sweden replied.

"The proposal raises unanswered questions that require further dialogue with Washington," was Norway's diplomatic response.

Even the Group of Seven predominantly Muslim countries, which includes six Arab nations, as well as Turkey and Indonesia, has made it clear that they are for a "just and lasting peace in Gaza," which includes rebuilding the devastated enclave.

However, the leaked details of the Committee's charter make no mention of Gaza at all.

For some critics, including some countries that were not ready to join, this is a vanity project for a president who makes no secret of his obsession with winning the highest accolade - the Nobel Peace Prize, which President Obama received in 2009 at the beginning of his first term in the White House.

World leaders know they could pay a heavy price for not joining this new club.

"I will impose 200 percent tariffs on his wines and champagnes, and he will join in, but he doesn't have to join in."

This was the president's response to French President Emmanuel Macron, threatening to resort to his favorite weapon.

Only Slovenia has spoken out loud what was kept silent.

Prime Minister Robert Golob made it clear what concerns him most - the Committee is "dangerously interfering in the broader international order."

Trump directly responded to this concern.

"Once the Committee is fully formed, we can do practically whatever we want, and we will do it in cooperation with the UN," he explained to a packed hall that carefully followed his every word.

But he likes to leave the world guessing.

The day before, when asked by a Fox TV reporter whether his committee would replace the UN, he replied: "It could. The UN hasn't been much help."

"I'm a big fan of the potential of the United Nations, but it has never realized that potential."

"The UN should have solved every war that I solved," he added.

A new contender for supreme peacemaker?

The UN, with its 193 member states, has indeed long since lost its role as the supreme peacemaker.

When I interviewed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in October 2016, on the first day of his first term, just hours after a rare unanimous vote by the Security Council, he promised a “burst of diplomacy for peace.”

Over the past decade, the UN's efforts have been hampered by a Security Council in perpetual stalemate, a growing number of disruptors and state sponsors of wars around the world, and the steady erosion of its own standing with the world's most powerful players, including the United States.

“We have to applaud Trump’s activism on ending wars,” says Martin Griffiths, a veteran of the United Nations, who believes this new initiative is “clearly a reflection of the failure of the UN Security Council, and of the UN as a whole.”

But the former undersecretary of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator warned that "what we've learned over these past 80 years, through many, many failures and inefficiencies, is the value of inclusion, what it looks like to be an advocate for the global community, not just a friend of Mr. Trump."

Guterres himself recently expressed regret that "there are those who believe that the force of law should be replaced by the force of power."

Asked in a BBC interview about Trump's constant claim that he had ended eight wars, he casually replied: "Those are ceasefires."

Some of them have already failed.

The interim peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo quickly fell apart, Thailand began sending accusations and more across the border, and India challenged Trump's central role in ending its conflict with Pakistan.

But only Trump's muscular mediation could End of the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

His personal involvement finally secured a ceasefire in the destructive confrontation in Gaza last October, which eased both the suffering of the Palestinians and the agony of the Israeli hostages.

His decision to finally and fully commit to this disaster, partly in response to calls from his closest Arab allies and grieving Israeli families, led him to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hamas to reach an agreement.

But even the Committee's first test is demanding - to move beyond the first phase of the agreement to end the war in the Gaza Strip.

Even now, as this new Committee slowly begins to take shape, it includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Arab leaders, who insist that the only path to sustainable peace must be through Palestinian self-government and an end to the Israeli occupation.

And the other big war on America's - and Europe's - agenda is Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to sit at the same table with representatives of Russia and Belarus.

Below this Board are three levels, most focused on Gaza - the Executive Board, the Executive Committee for Gaza, and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

They bring a mix of senior US officials and billionaires, as well as respected former politicians and former UN envoys who know Gaza well, along with Arab ministers and intelligence chiefs and Palestinian technocrats.

Even some critics praised the president for bringing to the table an old fight of a different kind - the ongoing demand for reform of the post-war architecture of the UN, including the Security Council, which no longer reflects the world's political map of great powers in every region.

He simply does not fit his own purpose.

“Perhaps an unintended good consequence of what Trump has done is that these issues will now be pushed to the very top of the international agenda,” said Mark Malloch Brown, a former UN deputy secretary-general.

"We are coming out of a period of extremely weak leadership by the United Nations, and I think this could be a call to concrete action."

To make matters worse, Trump's initiative to lead the world towards peace came at a time when discussions are heating up in many world capitals to replace Guterres, whose second term expires at the end of this year.

The president, who previously said he could end the war in Ukraine in a day, has discovered over the past year in power that peacemaking is a drawn-out and risky process.

But today he praised the Middle East region where "only small fires" are now smoldering.

He promised that an agreement in Ukraine is "coming very soon."

And he reveled in his new role as the future supreme peacemaker.

"This is for the world," he exclaimed.

Main photo: Reuters

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