{"id":104954,"date":"2026-02-20T13:59:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=104954"},"modified":"2026-02-20T13:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:59:06","slug":"inaugural-board-of-peace-meeting-donald-trump-at-the-centre-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=104954","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural Board Of Peace Meeting; Donald Trump At The Centre Of It."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Washington DC; February 2026<\/strong>: The eclectic group comprising of Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Paraguay, Vietnam, to name only a few is a part of the membership roll of US President Donald Trump\u2019s newly-minted Board of Peace, which met today (20th February 2026 early morning IST) for the first time in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite a logo that only highlights parts of the Western Hemisphere, a visual nod to Trump\u2019s \u201cDonroe Doctrine\u201d in which the Board\u2019s members span the globe. What unites them is something more pragmatic; they are unified by a desire to avoid offending President Donald Trump, and the thought that maybe they would gain something by being on the Board of Peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[[Donroe Doctrine<\/strong>: President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration is reviving and reinterpreting the logic of the Monroe Doctrine in its effort to assert power over the Western Hemisphere. Where the 19th century doctrine warned external powers against encroaching in the Americas, Trump&#8217;s version broadens the concept. It\u202fseeks\u202fnot just to limit China, Russia, and Iran in the Western Hemisphere, but to actively assert American primacy through a mix of military pressure, economic coercion, selective alliance-building, and Trump&#8217;s personal score-settling.\u202fIn 2026, this posture will heighten the risk of\u202fpolicy overreach and unintended consequences.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pattern crystallised in 2025:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>strikes on alleged drug boats;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>threatened military action in Colombia &amp; sanctions on Colombia&#8217;s president;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>threatened military action in Mexico;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>sanction on Brazilian Supreme Court justice;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>pressure on Panama over canal management;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>new sanctions on Nicaragua;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>tightened restrictions on Cuba;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>upgraded relations with El Salvador&#8217;s Nayib Bukele in exchange for deportation cooperation;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a $20 billion bailout for Argentina timed to boost President Javier Milei&#8217;s political fortunes;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a pardon for a former Honduran president convicted of drug trafficking by a US court.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the centerpiece is Venezuela, where a high-stakes gamble has already delivered Trump his headline win<strong>]]<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group was initially unveiled last month as a \u201ctransitional administration\u201d to oversee the redevelopment of Gaza. But its mission has already expanded. Trump now casts the Board\u2019s ambitions in broader terms, as a body tasked with maintaining international peace, and has indicated he believes it could rival the United Nations. It\u2019s a sweeping mandate for a group held together by proximity to one man whose time in power is limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This is a tremendous group of powerful people and brilliant people&#8221;, Trump said at the meeting today, &#8220;and I think that we can do things a lot of other people would not be able to even conceive of or think of&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump has appointed himself the group&#8217;s lifelong chairman, even as his presidential term has just 03 years remaining. As chair, he holds the unilateral authority to veto decisions, approve the agenda, and select his own successor. That structure means the group is operating under a time constraint if countries want to work with the current US President while he\u2019s still in office. The limitation is hardly ideal when it\u2019s trying to administer peace in a war-torn enclave like Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are also already signs that it is colliding with the United Nations. On Wednesday, the UNSC held a high-level meeting on Gaza in New York, originally scheduled for today but moved up because it coincided with the Board\u2019s inaugural meeting and would complicate travel plans for members planning to attend both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The gathering today comes amid questions around the scope of its mission and its potential effectiveness. Many of the US\u2019s longstanding European allies have since refused to join, in part because Trump invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate, though the Kremlin has yet to sign on. This week, the Vatican also declined to join the Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their place stands a patchwork group of nations, each making different pledges to the group. The United Arab Emirates, for example, committed $1 billion to the initiative to maintain a permanent seat, an amount even the highest paying countries have not reached in UN dues. Other members, like Indonesia, are preparing to lend thousands of troops to the Board\u2019s International Stabilisation Force, which aims to secure Gaza\u2019s streets. As it happens, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is hoping to leave Washington this week with a US trade deal in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What, then, can the Board realistically achieve? The task in Gaza is gigantic. Over 60 million tons of rubble need to be cleared, the equivalent of around 162 Golden Gate Bridges. But Abrams is optimistic that the Board can make a \u201creal contribution\u201d in Gaza. For example, if the Board can empower the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a technocratic Palestinian group, to hire engineers and other qualified people to work on public services, like water, sewage, schooling, and roads, that would mark a massive achievement for the Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Securing lasting peace in Gaza is a tougher goal to reach, said Abrams. The International Stabilisation Force is taking on this task, but achieving it, Abrams says, relies on Hamas\u2019s disarmament. That\u2019s something the militant group as well as its political arm has refused to do. Countries being asked to commit troops to the peacekeeping forces have themselves ruled out attempting to complete this task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSecurity is not provided by school crossing guards\u201d, said Abrams. \u201cEither Hamas is going to give up its arms, or the IDF may take them away, but not to this Force\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Delving into the past, we find that transnational groups those which acts as transitional administrators serve as a cautionary tale:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the 1960s, the UN temporarily assumed control of West New Guinea to oversee a transfer from Dutch to Indonesian rule. But the group paid little attention to long-term governance and failed to resolve disputes over self-determination in the territory among the Indigenous population.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>After the invasion of Iraq, a US-led coalition purged former Ba&#8217;ath Party members from public life \u2013 a move that created a vacuum for extremist groups, and is widely regarded as one of Washington\u2019s biggest foreign policy errors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Even the successes have come with caveats: NATO\u2019s military intervention in Kosovo in the late 1990s in response to ethnic cleansing by Serbians was widely regarded as a triumph, but reviews of the UN peacekeeping mission installed in the Balkans thereafter were mixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Time is of the essence. A US official told reporters that a future President could appoint a representative to the Board. But whether a Republican or Democrat replaces Trump, according to Abrams, neither will want an ex-president interfering with their foreign policy. As such, the Board\u2019s lifespan is tied to Trump\u2019s presidency, meaning it only has 03 years to bring long-term peace and prosperity to Gaza, or anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think beyond Gaza, it\u2019s not a serious institution. It&#8217;s not going to replace the UN\u201d, said Abrams. \u201cIt will fade away on January 20th, 2029\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Team Maverick<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington DC; February 2026: The eclectic group comprising of Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Paraguay, Vietnam, to name only a few is a part of the membership roll of US President Donald Trump\u2019s newly-minted Board of Peace, which met today (20th February 2026 early morning IST) for the first time in Washington, D.C. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":104955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[81],"post_format":[],"flags":[],"class_list":["post-104954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104956,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104954\/revisions\/104956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/104955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104954"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_format&post=104954"},{"taxonomy":"flags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fflags&post=104954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}