Board of peace or alternative UN? Trump moves upend world order

A scheme ostensibly set up to rebuild Gaza now seems as if it may allow the president to bypass more established bodies

- Isabel Coles & Hugh Tomlinson

US president Donald Trump signs the charter of his board of peace initiative at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.

(Marius Schreiber/AP)

The invitation from Donald Trump was delivered by the US president's son-in-law late last year. In a phone call, Jared Kushner asked Keir Starmer whether he would be interested in becoming a member of the "board of peace" established to oversee the rehabilitation of Gaza.

Details did not materialise until the UK and other countries received the charter earlier this month less than a week before a signing ceremony in Switzerland. Diplomats had known its remit would be wider than Gaza, but the scope of its mandate still took them by surprise. "It seems to be designed as an alternative, or if you're being charitable, a complement to the UN," said a senior diplomat. "It looks like a Trump alternative to the UN."

If Starmer and other European leaders might once have considered joining the board, Trump's renewed threats to Greenland precluded that.

At Davos last week, a roll call of autocrats, monarchs and leaders of military-backed regimes took to the stage with Trump in a lineup revealing the contours of an emerging world order revolving around him.

Leaders from Belarus, Argentina, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Paraguay took turns to sign the charter beside a beaming Trump. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, might have participated were it not for the international criminal court warrant hanging over him.