The Humiliation of Donald Trump in Davos
The leading democracies of the world revolt against Trump’s absurd Board of Peace as the “middle powers” swoon to the rallying cry of Canada’s Mark Carney
Chairman Trump
Over the last few days, with all the attention on Donald Trump trying to take over Greenland, his plan to create and lead an institution he said “might” replace the United Nations has escaped scrutiny.
But the text of the charter of Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which was formally unveiled today in an embarrassing signing ceremony in Davos that highlighted America’s growing isolation in the world, needs to be read carefully to be believed.
Imagine if you created an international organization that combined the scaminess of Trump University with the membership rules of Mar-a-Lago and infused it with Trump’s newfound interest in imperialism and growing disregard for any checks on his power. You would get Trump’s Board of Peace, as outlined by its founding document.
The creation of the Board is one of the greatest bait-and-switches in diplomatic history. In November, the UN Security Council adopted a Trump-backed resolution outlining a peace plan for Gaza that included the creation of a “Board of Peace” to address the enormous reconstruction effort there. China abstained during the vote. Fu Cong, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, warned that the resolution had “skimpy details” about the Board and expressed suspicion that repeated requests for more information were met with “no response.” China plays a lot of games at the UN, but Fu Cong was onto something.
Two months later, the original Gaza Board of Peace described in the UN resolution has been tucked inside a new super Board of Peace that Trump has invented to— well, nobody really knows. But if you read the charter carefully, it appears to be a new global platform for Trump to apply his unique formula for solving diplomatic crises: descending on the world’s trouble spots and leveraging the power and prestige of the United States to offer help in exchange for economic concessions that often seem to benefit Trump, his family members, and his cronies. (Today, Trump again talked about Gaza as a real estate opportunity.)
Naturally, Trump has made himself the new Board of Peace’s chairman, who, according to the Trump-authored charter, has these powers:
Control over which countries are invited as members of the Board (Trump reportedly sent out some 60 invitations)
Renewal authority of each country’s membership after a three-year term—unless the country contributes $1 billion, which automatically releases it from the 3-year cutoff
The sole authority to determine when and where the Board meets and approve all meeting agendas
The power to cast tie-breaking votes
The authority to approve every member country’s representative to the Board
Control over the creation of any entities to do the Board’s work
The selection of the members of the Board of Peace’s Executive Board, which will “consist of leaders of global stature” who can be removed by Trump at any time for any reason.
This Executive Board can make decisions by a majority vote, but, naturally, they are subject to a veto by Chairman Trump. Some of the “leaders of global stature” Trump has announced for the board include Jared Kushner and Robert Gabriel Jr., a former producer for Fox News (The Ingraham Angle) who has steadily risen through the ranks of Trump World and is best known for texting someone during the January 6 insurrection, “Potus im sure is loving this.”
The Trump-controlled Executive Board is also empowered to create accounts to fund the expenses of the Board of Peace, which will come from “Member States, other States, organizations, or other sources.”
But in case you suspect this entire thing will operate as a slush fund for Trump financed by those billion dollar admission fees from the likes of Hungary and Qatar—as well as “other sources”—fret not because the charter specifically says the Trump-controlled Executive Board, which remember is staffed by “leaders of global stature,” such as Kushner and Gabriel, “shall authorize the institution of controls and oversight mechanisms with respect to budgets, financial accounts, and disbursements, as necessary or appropriate to ensure their integrity.”
So this thing is completely on the up and up.
Chairman Trump is also authorized to adopt any resolutions or directives “to implement the Board of Peace’s mission.” That’s right, while the sclerotic UN can be stymied by the veto power of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the new Trump UN can unilaterally adopt any resolution he wants.
Chairman Trump can also dissolve the Board of Peace at any time. What happens to all the money if it’s dissolved? Don’t worry, Kushner, Gabriel, and the rest of the Executive Board controlled by Trump will decide “the rules and procedures with respect to the settling of all assets, liabilities, and obligations upon dissolution.”
But in case there’s ever a dispute over any of these details, there is a clear mechanism for resolving it: Chairman Trump “is the final authority regarding the meaning, interpretation, and application of” the Board of Peace’s charter.
The only way to remove the chairman is for him to resign or be incapacitated. (Trump is famously not a fan of anything resembling an impeachment clause.)
In sum, our president is using the power and prestige of his office to co-opt an entity intended to bring stability and aid to one of the most destitute places on earth to create his own make-believe UN staffed by his relatives and cronies that he will run with dictatorial powers and is already using to shake down rich autocrats.
Marc Weller, an international law professor at Cambridge, likened Trump’s Board of Peace to “a takeover of the world order by one individual in his own image.”
“Who can say no to Trump?”
The Board of Peace is obviously one of the most daft proposals in diplomatic history. But Trump is both crazy and the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. So, a lot of countries, mostly the ones you would expect—backsliding democracies and Middle Eastern dictatorships—have indeed rushed to sign up for this thing.
The list now includes these 24 countries, according to various reports: Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.
In Davos today, 19 of these countries— all but Belarus, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, and Vietnam—joined Trump for a signing ceremony as founding members of the BoP. This was supposed to be the climax of Trump’s trip to Davos, his moment of triumph on the world stage.
“Who can say no to Trump?” one Arab official told Reuters earlier this week about joining the BoP.
But then a few things happened. The escalating Greenland threats in the run-up to Davos. The rallying cry from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Perhaps a general sense of solidarity that builds up when a group of people gather and realize they’re all thinking the same thing.
At first, there were scattered anonymous quotes from Western officials hedging about participation in the Board of Peace. Then, as more details emerged, there was a trickle of flat-out public rejections of Trump’s invitation. France, Norway, Sweden, Italy—et tu, Giorgia Meloni?—and Slovenia announced they were hard nos.
Building a large group of respectable heads of state for the Board of Peace photo op was Trump’s highest priority in Davos, and it surely factored into his retreat from economic and military threats over Greenland yesterday, as he tried to lure Europeans to join today’s event.
But it was too late. The world’s leading democracies instead humiliated Trump. Every American ally in Western Europe, as well as Canada and Australia, skipped Trump’s signing ceremony today.
This is precisely the “rupture” that Carney, the star of Davos, described this week.
“There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety,” he said. “Well, it won’t.”
Countries that normally would have coddled Trump as a means of surviving his economic coercion and bullying—pretending that he wasn’t actually dismantling the multilateral institutions they depend on and revere—were suddenly willing to challenge him directly.
It might seem like a small thing to skip a photo op, but this revolt of Carney’s “middle powers” against Trump in Davos will hit him hard. Carney, the grey former central banker and technocrat, received a standing ovation, while Trump got pictures with foreign ministers whose names he couldn’t pronounce.
Trump—in full TACO mode—seemed chastened today. He retreated from lauding the Board of Peace as a replacement for the UN. Instead, he said, “The combination of the Board of Peace and the UN can be something very unique for the world.”
And Trump betrayed his obvious disappointment in who ultimately showed up on stage with him. The founding members of the Board of Peace arrayed behind him, he said, are “in most cases very popular leaders, in some cases, not so popular, but that’s the way it goes in life.”
Love this Ryan. I’m sorry you went through what you did with Olivia and Kennedy, but great to see you getting back to this kind of reporting. More of this please.
Very interesting analysis. I expected Carney’s speech to have some long term effects, but did not realize it amounted to instant karma with the BOP. Just one small nitpick; Carney was never finance minister. He was a central banker of Canada and England and economic advisor to several governments. But, he was not elected before becoming PM and not a member of cabinet.