By Sianna Zewdie (Y12)
Critics of Donald Trump—i.e., any educated person with common sense—often liken him to a spoiled child, who, for some reason, a majority of the American public has deemed competent enough to rule one of the most powerful nations on Earth. Much like my 9-year-old cousin, he requires constant stimulation and activity in his life, even if he has to produce it himself. It seems to be that an incredibly polarized nation, a world with 60-odd active state-based conflicts, increasing inflation coupled with decreasing real wages just isn’t doing it for him anymore. And so he has begun flirting with disaster: his trade wars with China, invading Venezuela, and laying claim to Greenland. Unlike women, however, disaster seems to be flirting back.
Snoop Dogg in his heyday cannot compare to how just how high the tensions were when the World Economic Forum rolled around a few weeks ago, as everyone waited to see what Trump was going to pull out of his sleeve. And while it wasn’t surprise missile strikes or an off-the-cuff declaration of war, it was the introduction of a so-called “Board of Peace”—because, quite frankly, he’s bored of peace.
Don’t be misled by the name (to be honest, when it comes to what Trump says, your best bet is typically to believe the opposite) because this new proposal, thin on substance and thick with self-aggrandization, will bring anything but peace. It is a vaguely defined advisory body composed of businessmen, political loyalists, and various government ministers, tasked with promoting ‘global stability’—the complete antithesis of Trump’s foreign policy so far.
Take the Executive Board members, for example:
- Secretary Marco Rubio
- Steve Witkoff
- Jared Kushner
- Sir Tony Blair
- Marc Rowan
- Ajay Banga
- Robert Gabriel
Or, as I like to call them:
- Diaspora Turncoat
- Putin’s Wet Dream
- Nepo Baby to End All Nepo Babies
- War Pig With a Peerage
- Bibi’s B—
- Rapist Apologist
- Institutional Amnesia Personified
Once you get past the fact that the poorest Executive Board Member is still a millionaire, a deeper hypocrisy comes into focus: membership itself requires a billion-dollar entry fee. Peace, it seems, is not administered by the most capable, but by those who can afford the cover charge, i.e., the Global North. Peace administered by Western nations—yes, there’s definitely historical precedent of that working out!
The Board of Peace was not always intended to be an abstract experiment in global governance, but as a concrete response to the genocide in Gaza (although they definitely did not refer to it as such). The United Nations’ Security Council, much like a self-signed death warrant, approved this proposal wholeheartedly in November of last year.
There are a number of things wrong with this: first, to assume that the American government has anything resembling benevolent interests in Palestine (or in the Middle East in general) is the surest sign of either naïvete or MAGA brainwashing. Donald Trump’s foreign policy when it comes to Gaza has ranged from the bizarre (AI Gaza) to the concerning (sending billions of dollars in arms to Israel), and to place the fate of an oppressed, besieged population in his grubby hands is nothing short of reckless. And this is not to say that Trump is a sinner in a hall of saints; the entire American government has long operated as a front for AIPAC, ensuring that policy decisions consistently prioritize Israeli strategic interests over Palestinian rights.
Secondly, the question of whether Trump’s intentions in Gaza are pure or not is practically irrelevant now, as the organization bears little resemblance to what the UNSC had envisioned in November. Far from being a mechanism for brokering peace, it has become a pay-to-play advisory board, proving how power and wealth can masquerade as governance, all of it serving as little more than a plaything to amuse Donald, a way to alleviate the endless tedium of being Trump.
While it is true that the European Union has undoubtedly been far too lenient toward Donald Trump over the past year, it did finally put its foot down (albeit tentatively) by refusing to join the VIP Boys Club. While they approved of it when it came to Gaza, they shied away the minute U.S. interests expanded to the rest of the world. Once again, the West proves its true priorities: eager to police the world when it’s convenient, but quick to shy away when its own power or principles might be tested. Macron, Merz, Sanchez, Plenković: all these European leaders have issued a polite but firm declination of Trump’s offer—something that has only enraged him further—sending him into a spiral of tariffs, text leaking, and, of course, as always, Truth Social.
The Board of Peace’s charter is in an interesting one (I use interesting here the same way I use it to refer to my brother) because not only does it invite around 60 countries (none of which are from sub-Saharan Africa, may I add), establish the Executive Board, and the Gaza Executive Board, but also offers Donald Trump a very interesting role: Chairman. For life. Many people have speculated how Trump will face the fact that he will not be able to run for a third term, but clearly, he’s found something better. In this role, approved and even mandated by the U.N. Security Council, he is granted executive privilege, giving him authority over the board’s decisions with minimal oversight. It’s the ultimate expression of Trump being, quite literally, bored of peace: when running the country isn’t enough, why not run the world instead?
Nothing sounds scarier: Donald Trump wielding the power to issue his will with virtually no safeguards in place. And I mean that literally—Trump has repeatedly suggested that this Board of Peace could replace the United Nations, consolidating global decision-making under his personal authority. For those who think this is hyperbole, consider the facts: the U.N. is hemorrhaging money and is on track to run out of money by July—in part due to America’s withdrawal from several essential organizations. Regardless of whether you believe in the U.N. as a model of international cooperation or merely a front for Western dominance over the Global South, it is undeniable that it is preferable to the alternative: Donald Trump as Supreme Leader of the World. Kim Jong Un should sue for copyright…
And what next? If Donald Trump is given executive decision-making over global affairs, what happens when he’s in a bad mood and decides to bomb a country? For La Chât students, perhaps this isn’t a major concern as we are in his ideal tax bracket, but we cannot forget the fact that there is only one thing Donald Trump is devoted to: himself. The rest of us are just collateral. But you know what? Who knows what it’s like inside that tiny little peanut that we call his mind? Maybe, as Elon Musk put it, he does want peace in his own way—‘a little piece of Greenland, a little piece of Venezuela’!