The Current - Is Trump’s Board of Peace a threat to the UN?

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump has ambitious plans for his Board of Peace. He says countries that join him will fix Gaza and then do "pretty much whatever we want to do." Others aren't so sure it's the answer.

Hey, it's me, Gavin Crawford, host of the Because News podcast. If you're looking for some kind of group therapy for the news, well, we've got you. On Because News, I quiz the brightest and funniest Canadians about what's going on in the world, all in front of a live audience. So whether you spent the week quoting aphorisms of Thucydides or binge-watching heated rivalry, we'll catch you up on the Canadian headlines. Follow us wherever you get your fine podcasts for free. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Donald Trump has big plans for world peace.

The Board of Peace started as a body meant to oversee the next stages of the ceasefire in Gaza was authorized by the UN Security Council to do just that. Now, the U.S. President has unveiled a roadmap for the board that goes beyond that. Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do, and we'll do it in conjunction with the United Nations. You know, I've always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it. Who will be on, said board, has been a big question mark. Nations that contribute a billion dollars will get a permanent spot. President Trump revoked his invitation to Prime Minister Mark Carney to join the Board of Peace. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel are among the countries that have said yes to his invitation. Thus far, though, none of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council have signed on. Bob Ray is the former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations. He joins us now. Bob Ray, good morning. Good morning, Matt.

You were at the UN as this Board of Peace was being created in November. What was the thinking behind that resolution and your understanding as to what it was going to do? Well, the Security Council authorized, well, said the ceasefire would take place and would have the cooperation of the Board of Peace. The assumption was that the Board of Peace was going to continue and broaden the discussions that had happened to create the Gaza ceasefire. and basically the Americans said recognizing the Board of Peace is a precondition for our agreeing to the ceasefire, and we think it probably was for the Israelis as well. So that's the origin of it. But obviously what's now emerged is a much more ambitious concept that the president has put forward,

that has created in turn a reaction from a number of countries, including Canada, to say, wait a minute, let's get into the weeds of this because we want to make sure that we know what we're doing. What do you think that ambition is? He said, in his words, the board can pretty much do whatever we want it to do. Well, that's right. That's what he said. And the document does not limit the work of the board to Gaza. And it also has this, you know, billion dollar price tag. And it's obviously closely tied as well to, other ambitions of the president and of some member states with respect to money and investments and other things. So it's, it's, we just need to know more. And I think everyone is looking at this with a, I mean, apart from Hungary, there are no European members of the,

of the board. Bulgaria is part of this as well, apparently. Sorry, you're correct. Yes, That's right. But I wouldn't, Western Europe is not joined in. What does that tell you? Well, it tells you there's skepticism about the details and about the true ambitions of the board and what it's really all about. There are some very good experts who've been brought in, a former UN special representative to the Middle East, Sigrid Kogg, who's a very competent person. And there are a number of other people who are extremely competent. but it is right now a Trump, I would say a Trump, not just an American, but a Trump initiative with allies of the president, both personal and countrywise, who are dominating the proceedings.

And that, plus all the other ambitions that I talked about that are quite unclear, makes it something we want to study before we leap. Our prime minister, Mark Carney, was disinvited before he got a chance to make a final decision. Do you think that Canada should want a seat at the table here? Well, I think the president's decision does this invite the prime minister makes our process a little simpler because... You don't have to say no if somebody already says no on your behalf? Yeah, you know, you're not invited to the party. Okay.

I wasn't sure I wanted to come anyway. But it's more complicated than that because in order to work, the board has to work with the UN and has to work with member states of the United Nations. So whether Canada is technically on the board or not is frankly less important than the realization that the president has emphasized that he wants to work with the UN in whatever he does in Gaza and elsewhere. There's also no mention in the document of anything with respect to two states, which is foundational for Canada and for many, many other countries. On the other hand, there are many Middle Eastern countries that also believe in two states like Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, and others that are on the board. So it's a bit of a mishmash at the moment, and we'll see how things unfold. People who are disinvited can often be invited the next day. We've seen this over and over and over again.

So impulsive decisions can also be changed. Put aside the issue. of president's impulsive decision, shouldn't we want a voice there? I mean, if we are sideline, and this is what he says it's going to be, which is a body that is going to be involved in any number of international issues, shouldn't we want a seat at the table? Well, let's see what it really is. Let's see how it really works. I think, of course, we want to be a seat at the table where political and economic decisions of great importance to regions are made, but we are also a member of the United Nations. We also have our own money. We spend seven billion dollars on foreign assistance.

We're not without means. We have an army whose capacities are growing all the time. And we have some very talented diplomats around the world. So I don't worry about Canada being marginalized. That's sort of, I think, a mistake to think that way. I worry more about, well, how does this actually work and what are the real ambitions of the people that are on it? And that I think is a more foundational question. What about the United Nations being marginalized? We heard at the beginning of the conversation Donald Trump offering, I mean, somebody characterized his comments as a bit of a velvet glove. You know, I like the United Nations, but it hasn't really done what it said it was going to do. Do you worry that the United Nations could be marginalized? That this could be an

alternative in some ways to the UN. It's not an alternative to the UN. The UN doesn't have a monopoly on you know, governance or international interventions. It's not, that's, that's never been the case. But I think it's going to be in everybody's interest for the UN agencies that have a lot to say and do about the delivery of humanitarian services, for example. I mean, all the improvisations that the Israelis and the Americans have tried on delivering humanitarian service in Gaza have been a disaster. So the UN has the experience to be able to do some things that it should be.

be able to continue to do. And I think, you know, when the president talks about the UN has not succeeded in some ways, why is that, Mr. President? You have a veto and you've used it. And the Russians have a veto and they've used it. And that's what disempowers the Security Council. It's not the UN that disempowers the Security Council. It's the permanent members of the Security Council so that use their veto to prevent the UN from doing its job. Bob, good to speak with you as always. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. Bob Ray, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations.

For more on what this means specifically for the Middle East, I'm joined by Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, based in Washington, D.C. He is in Beirut this morning. Hussein, hello to you. Great to be with you again. Great to have you back on the program. I want to get to the Board of Peace, but the context around this conversation,

is about Gaza and what's happening in Gaza. There were developments yesterday and Israel saying that it recovered the body of the last remaining hostage and now says it's going to reopen the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. What difference do you think that's going to make for people in Gaza? Well, I mean, I do think it's a significant step forward. Like in terms of the ability to prevent mass starvation, epidemic, and even worse human carnage, in Gaza in the next few months than we've seen in the past two years, it's a big deal. It is estimated that at least 650 to 700 truckloads of supplies are needed daily to keep, you know,

as a body and soul together for the two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And during the conflict, during the war, it went down to about, you know, 70, 80, if at all, right, if zero. And it's been maybe about 150 since the ceasefire has taken hold. And hopefully the opening of the border will, A, allow more trucks to go through, even though Rafa is not that the Egyptian border crossing that the Israelis are talking about opening, it's not fit for the purpose. Israel controls the proper crossing for industrial goods and real supplies and things like that. but it will allow Palestinians to go back and forth to Egypt to get medical care,

go abroad to Europe and Canada and elsewhere to get treated, and should allow more food to go in. What it won't do is change the fundamentals on the ground. Do you think that, I mean, part of change in the fundamentals on the ground is the second phase of this peace plan that Donald Trump helped put together. And the big picture, the Board of Peace was meant to help make this actually possible. Do you think that the board of peace can make that happen? Can it move this process ahead in a meaningful way?

I got to say, I'm very skeptical. I think the biggest factor in determining that is not Trump's bill or anything like that or his attention. It's probably the outcome of the Israeli election. Israel is going to have an election sometime, probably not earlier than May, but certainly before October, right, in this year. And if Prime Minister Netanyahu in his right-wing coalition are removed and replaced by a more reasonable, constructive and self-enlightened government, then I think all kinds of things are possible to bring the conflict to an end and make progress. But if not, if Netanyahu returns, or if some similarly hawkish group takes over, even a completely different group of people, As long as they had the same fundamental attitude of total hostility towards Palestinians

toot court, whether there are the Palestinians of Fatah in the West Bank and the PLO who want to do a peace deal with Israel or Hamas, which wants to fight and kill Israelis, and treating them all as the same and all as adversaries, I'm afraid it's going to be impossible to really go forward. And there's this incredible disconnect, Mark, between the rhetoric of Trump and all this administrative maneuvering regarding the Board of Peace and the National Committee to govern Gaza and all the different people who are being appointed, both Palestinians and not, on the one hand, and the realities on the ground, which is, you know, about 58% of Gaza is still being occupied

by Israel, but very few Palestinians there. And then the remaining 42% is controlled by Hamas with most of the Ghazan population barely killing onto life there. And this is because Israel wants it that way. And yet Israel joined the Board of Peace. So what does that, does that not signal that there's some interest in what the board is trying to do? Nope. It signals an interest implicating Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been very clear. He demanded Israel cooperate. He demanded Israel join a ceasefire when Israel didn't want to join a ceasefire. He yanked Netanyahu to the ceasefire agreement, you know, kicking and screaming. He had a lot of help from the Israeli public, which doesn't want this war to continue, and from the Israeli military, which doesn't know what

it's fighting for. It hasn't had a strategic purpose in a year and a half at least. But I do think that at the moment, it is Israel, or at least in the Netanyahu government, is trying to get away with doing as little as possible to change things in Gaza. And if he remains in office after the election, I'm pretty sure the war will resume. What about Hamas?

It's supposed to, as part of that ongoing peace plan, supposed to disarm, relinquish its authority. There are signs that it is reasserting its authority. Is Hamas interested in what is, What is no? The answer is no. No, they're not interested. No, they're not interested. If it involves giving up power, real power on the ground, which is calculated in bullets in these kind of situations, in an occupied territory where there is no state, there is no Palestinian state, it's not part of Israel, and I'm not just talking about Gaza, I'm talking about all of the occupied territories conquered by Israel in 1967. This is a chaotic. environment, right? And so whoever has the guns, whether it's the Israeli military or the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank,

or Hamas in Gaza, or whoever it is, that's where power comes from. And no, Hamas is not interested in giving up power. They might step back from the TV cameras and let some committee of people associated with the Palestinian Authority

pretend to take over. But first of all, if Netanyahu has anything to say about it, they're not going to have any power at all because he prefers to deal with Hamas than the Palestinian Authority, because it is much nicer to have a deranged adversary than a reasonable adversary. And that's the difference between Hamas and Fatah. On the other hand, I really don't think Hamas is going to cooperate at all in actually ceding authority to their arch-rivals. The whole point of the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was an effort,

ongoing effort, the foundational project of Hamas is to take over the Palestinian national movement. They haven't succeeded in doing it. And this whole war with us as another part of that effort. I have to let you go. We are out of time. But where does all of that leave the Palestinians who are caught in the middle of this? They are squeezed between Silla and Kyridivis, right? They've got, they've got the Israeli War of Vengeance on the one hand, and Hamas' determination to continue of the war, insofar as possible, through one means or another, right? Maybe they would like a lull through a group or something, but they are not done fighting the Israelis, and they're not done fighting other Palestinians, and they're not done suppressing Palestinians who don't agree

with them. So they are caught between appalling figures on all sides. Hussain, good to speak with you again. Thank you very much. I wish I had something better to say. So do I. Perhaps down the line, Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute based in Washington, D.C. Today he was in Beirut. It's been said that being neighbors with America is like sleeping

with an elephant. One gets affected by every twitch and grunt. Well, these days, there's a lot more than twitches and grunts in dealing with the U.S. I'm Paul Hunter. And I'm Katie Simpson. We're reporters here in Washington and every Wednesday will bring you a smart conversation to help you make

sense of how American politics are affecting Canada. Our new podcast is called two blocks from the White House. Find and follow now wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. Michael O'Hanlon is a foreign policy and defense expert at the Brookings Institution Think Tank in Washington, D.C. He is the author of a new book. It's called to Dare Mighty Things, U.S. defense strategy since the revolution. Michael, good morning to you. Morning. Nice to be with you. Good to have you here. When Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, was disinvited from the Board of Peace. Donald Trump said, this is the most prestigious

board of leaders ever assembled at any time. How seriously should we take his plans for the board? Well, that comment you just quoted, I would not take very seriously. But the plans are not unimportant if we get back to the Gaza issue that you were just discussing, you know, with such a somber tone and overall prognosis. And therefore, anything that's being done that returns back to the Oslo principles, the idea of a long-term creation of a Palestinian state, even if this is just a vision, even if it's a long ways from implementation, nobody's signing up for the peace implementation force. Hamas is not disarming, as we just heard, et cetera, all the more reason why we need to have world leaders still holding on to that two-state vision, which is otherwise really

sort of evaporating before our eyes, not only in real political terms, but even in intellectual and academic and policy debate terms. And so I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that that 20-point plan President Trump pushed for Gaza does try to give political, agency and long-term sovereignty to the Palestinian people. I would not give up on the board for that simple reason alone, even if we have to sort of play jiu-jitsu with some of the bluster and some of the grandiosity that President Trump, as usual, insists upon. So I like your previous guest, the former ambassador, because I think he had that same tone, pushing back where needed, but otherwise playing jiu-jitsu a bit. What do you think Donald Trump's plan for the Board of Peace is?

Again, it started with one thing, but there is a more maximalist, uh, uh, a, uh, perhaps at play. And he's a hinted at that, said essentially it could do whatever it wants. What do you think his plan for the board is? I don't think he has a plan. I think he has a gut instinct. He wants to use it maybe to try again at the Ukraine conflict in a different way from a different vector with Vladimir Putin, part of the founding board. You know, some people say it's him being nice to Putin. That's probably true. But you could also say it's him trying to ensnare Putin, which probably won't work. But you know, if one of the other conflicts he wants to apply this to would be Ukraine, great.

If one of the others would be Congo, Rwanda, where he claims to have already stopped the conflict, but of course he hasn't, and there's a long ways to go at any resolution, and this board can bring in other voices, great. So I think the best way to view the board is sort of, you know, not a competitor with the UN Security Council, but an additional mechanism that could be called in like almost a, special envoy or a pinch hitter and sometimes do useful things. I don't expect that much will come of it myself. And we all know the problems that we try to attack are daunting. And all these conflicts have proven, you know, very difficult to solve. So there's no reason why this particular board's

going to have a magic silver bullet. But why, you know, why be against it if you don't have to be? That would be my bottom line. How do you understand how it fits into how Donald Trump sees the world? I mean, the news these past few weeks has been about Venezuela, Iran, Greenland. There's the conflict, as you mentioned, in Ukraine that continues to unfold as well. Is there a coherence to his foreign policy that you understand? To an extent, yes. I mean, the things that he trots out on a day-to-day basis sometimes come out of nowhere.

And I was very distressed, of course, by the Greenland talk. of late until he backed down a bit from that last week at Davos. But there is a certain coherence. It's a maximalization of U.S. power. It is a desire to play big on the world stage in sort of every way as diplomat, peacemaker, military operator, commander-in-chief, you know, chief trade negotiator, chief investment officer. He just wakes up restless, you know. He's obviously not a stupid guy. got a lot of ideas. A lot of them are dangerous. A lot of them are ill-founded, but he's just a relentless ball of energy, and he's undisciplined by a normal policy process or by respect for, you know, others to be blunt, other institutions, other countries. And so it's understandable why

Prime Minister Carney reacts the way he does. And, you know, I admired Carney's speech. I have to say it's not my recommended approach most of the time for dealing with Trump. Again, usually you're better off deflecting, maybe more the way Mark Ruta did as NATO Secretary General, being firm on those issues where you have to be firm, but otherwise not having the bigger fights because Trump himself also relishes the fights. And so in addition to whatever worldview there might be, he's just a guy who engages and when you get him going, he escalates more often than not. I guess I ask in part, and we're almost out of time, so let me just, I pardon for interrupting, but I ask in part because his base, I think, believed that Donald Trump, I mean, it was America first. It was not getting

involved in what he called Forever Wars. Was that misreading Donald Trump, or has he changed his stripes? Well, he's still trying to avoid Forever Wars in the Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea sense. And we see that with Venezuela, where he's got no interest to putting forces on the ground. He gets somebody to give him a Nobel Prize, Ms. Machado, and then he decides to basically spurn her and work with elements of the previous regime. So that tells you he doesn't want Forever Wars, But you're right, he has gone away from this sort of semi-isolationist, you know, North America-first approach. And he still wants to have a Monroe Doctrine or a, you know, Trump or Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that emphasizes American power in the Western Hemisphere. But he's clearly involved and interested in conflicts all over the world.

I think he would tell his MAGA base that the way he's doing it is going to serve American interests, economic, military, security, et cetera. But there's no doubt there's been a shift. in comparison with his first term or his presidential campaigns. And the fact that the rest of the world, Canada included, is left kind of wondering what will appear, not day by day, but minute by minute. I mean, that's not a bug. That's a feature of what he's trying to do in some ways. Yeah, in some ways he enjoys it. He enjoys provocation.

And more often than not, it's better to try to roll with the punches. Again, I don't blame Prime Minister Carney for getting fed up and pushing back, but it's not my generally recommended approach to dealing with Donald. Trump. That you worry about backlash and a blowback. Yeah, an escalation. And, you know, now all these silly increased tariff proposals that, again, as an American, I feel like I have to express apology to Canada for, I don't think we're treating an ally very well, but it's the way Trump operates and he'll continue to operate that way. Michael, it's good to speak with you about this. The Board of Peace is part of it, but there's a larger context that I think is people are trying to wrap their heads around, not just here, but around the world as well. Thank you very much for

being here. My pleasure. Thank you. Michael O'Hanlon is a foreign policy and defense expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He's also the author of a new book, To Dare Mighty Things, U.S. defense strategy since the revolution. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.