After a year of defunding UN agencies, Trump reveals his goal of replacing the UN with his own ‘Board of Peace’

One of Donald Trump’s agendas that has caught many people off guard is his proposed Board of Peace, which initially started with the sole goal of reconstructing Gaza. However, as more information about the proposed organization came to light, more and more world leaders began expressing doubt. Now, even the UN is concerned because, reportedly, it was Trump’s plan to replace it all along and hire himself as chairman “indefinitely.”

According to its charter, the Board of Peace is “an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” That does seem a little odd, considering the best descriptor for such an organization would be a non-governmental organization — which, under normal circumstances, are always welcome in the international community and, given its altruistic goals, sound like they would make the world a better place.

However, the Trump administration has been raging against the effectiveness of international institutions and even decimated agencies like USAID before laying out actual pathways for how to carry on the activities the agency had achieved throughout the world. Beyond the invaluable goodwill and respect the agency garnered for the U.S. globally, the good it does could have simply been absorbed by the myriad UN agencies. Trump was apparently not going to let that happen either.

Recent reports revealed that Trump pulled out of even more UN agencies and instead will be focusing on more direct partnerships with governments, leaving the financial future of the vital global diplomatic organization in question. Trump explained, “The UN just hasn’t been very helpful. I’m a big fan of the UN’s potential, but it has never lived up to its potential. The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them, I never even thought to go to them.” When Trump was asked whether he plans to replace the UN with his Board of Peace, he assured that he might.

France has vehemently rejected its invitation to join the board, something that clearly angered Trump. The French foreign minister, Pascal Confavreux, told CNN, “When you read the charter, it doesn’t only apply to Gaza, whereas the resolution that we had voted [on] … at the Security Council of the United Nations was really targeting Gaza and the Middle East. Point two is that it raises very important concerns regarding its rationality with the charter of the United Nations.”

But not everything in the Board of Peace would mirror the UN, should Trump get his way. Trump has had very public issues with the UN over what he claims was mistreatment when he attended the United Nations General Assembly. When Trump’s escalator and teleprompter failed, the president claimed he was being sabotaged and that the escalator, in particular, posed a threat. It was apparent early on that, if it were possible to get rid of the UN, Trump would certainly try.

At the Board of Peace, Trump plans to serve as chairman until a “voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity, as determined by a unanimous vote of the Executive Board.”