Trump’s Board of Peace convened its inaugural meeting in Washington on Thursday amid visible diplomatic resistance from major European allies, who declined to participate and openly questioned the initiative’s funding structure, political mandate and capacity to deliver tangible outcomes, particularly in relation to Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis.
Dozens of world leaders and national delegations arrived in the US capital for what the White House described as a landmark diplomatic gathering hosted by Donald Trump, but the absence of key transatlantic partners cast a long shadow over proceedings.
Officials from the administration acknowledged that the event, held at the renamed Donald J Trump Institute of Peace, would function largely as a fundraising summit, with Trump claiming that participating countries had pledged more than $5bn toward rebuilding Gaza.
The US president said the pledges were accompanied by commitments of “thousands of personnel” to an international stabilisation force and local policing framework intended to maintain security and order in Gaza.
However, critics noted that few details had been provided about how such forces would be deployed, under whose authority they would operate, or how they would coexist with existing Israeli security structures and Palestinian institutions.
Initially launched as a narrowly defined body focused on Gaza reconstruction, Trump’s Board of Peace has since evolved into a broader ad hoc council with ambitions to address global conflicts beyond the Middle East.
That expansion has intensified scepticism among diplomats and analysts, many of whom see the initiative as politically improvised and lacking the institutional grounding necessary for sustained conflict resolution.
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US diplomat, questioned whether the board could resolve the most fundamental issues underpinning the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“Who governs the territory, who provides security on the ground, and how to deal with the immediate needs of the Palestinian population,” he said, remain unanswered questions. He added that there was little indication the board could break the deadlock in negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
“The board is a convenient way for a president who’s interested in quick wins, transactions and a lot of motion in lieu of serious movement as a way to project that things are somehow … not dead,” Miller said. “So you could get some impressive pledges. But pledges are one thing, delivering is another.”
European resistance to Trump’s Board of Peace has been both coordinated and explicit. Ursula von der Leyen declined her invitation, while leaders of key US allies including the United Kingdom, Germany and France also opted out of participation.
Their absence underscored wider European unease over what officials described privately as opaque governance structures and a lack of clarity over how decisions would be made or enforced.
Trump further escalated tensions by rescinding an invitation to Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, following a critical speech Carney delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he warned against the erosion of multilateral institutions and the politicisation of humanitarian reconstruction.
The initiative suffered another diplomatic blow when Pope Leo XIV announced that the Vatican would not join the board. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said there were serious concerns that the initiative could undermine established international mechanisms.
“One concern,” Parolin said, “is that at the international level it should above all be the United Nations that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted.”
Despite the absence of major European allies and the Vatican, the meeting drew delegations from Israel and several Middle Eastern states, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and Qatar. A number of other countries with limited direct involvement in the Gaza conflict, from Argentina and Paraguay to Hungary and Kazakhstan, were also present.
Diplomats described participation by some states as an effort to curry favour with the Trump administration, particularly amid reports that the board is proposing permanent seats in exchange for donations of up to $1bn.
Critics have warned that such arrangements blur the line between diplomacy and transactional politics, raising questions about accountability and legitimacy.
Max Rodenbeck, Israel-Palestine project director at the International Crisis Group, said the initiative would be closely scrutinised. “If this meeting does not result in fast, tangible improvements on the ground – and particularly on the humanitarian front – its credibility will quickly crumble,” he said, noting what he described as “huge global scepticism about the shape and intentions of the Board of Peace”.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who endorsed the idea during a visit to Washington last week, chose not to attend the meeting himself.
Instead, Israel was represented by foreign minister Gideon Saar, a close ally of Netanyahu. Analysts said Netanyahu’s decision reflected domestic political pressures in an election year, as well as sensitivity over appearing alongside regional actors such as Qatar and Turkey, which have ties to Hamas.
On the ground, developments linked to Trump’s Board of Peace have been slow and fragmented. Nearly a month after the unveiling of a 100-day peace and recovery plan by Jared Kushner, individuals tasked with implementing the strategy remain unclear about their authority, resources and operational framework.
Fifteen members of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a technocratic body established under the plan, are currently based in Cairo.
According to officials familiar with the situation, they are eager to demonstrate improvements in living conditions inside Gaza but lack the tools and permissions required to act.
In a rare public statement posted on social media, the committee warned against being reduced to a symbolic body without real power. “We emphasize that full administrative, civilian, and police control by the NCAG is not merely procedural,” the statement said.
“The NCAG cannot be expected to carry responsibility without the full administrative, civilian, and police powers necessary to implement its mandate effectively.”
Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist who played a role in negotiating elements of the plan, described widespread frustration. “Everything is going slower than expected, and everyone is very frustrated,” he said.
“They don’t even know what their budget is, how much money they have to work with and what their tasks are going to be. It’s not even clear to them under whose authority they’re working.”
Efforts to establish an international stabilisation force, envisioned as support for Palestinian police, have also struggled to gain traction.
Indonesia has offered 8,000 troops, and infrastructure has reportedly been prepared inside Gaza, including a designated barracks site. Yet diplomats said key preconditions, including Hamas disarmament and Israeli troop withdrawal, remain unresolved.
Meanwhile, humanitarian conditions in Gaza continue to deteriorate. Aid flows remain severely restricted, and a broad list of “dual-use” items banned from entering the territory includes basic construction materials such as metal poles and tools, severely hampering reconstruction.
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“Israel is continuing to encroach on Gaza territory,” said Sam Rose, acting Gaza director for the UN relief agency Unrwa. “People are still being killed, buildings are still being demolished. It seems we’ve kind of fallen into a pattern of managing the conflict, or managing the post-conflict, in a way we never thought we would.”
As Trump’s Board of Peace seeks to position itself as a bold alternative to traditional diplomacy, its first meeting has highlighted the depth of international scepticism surrounding the project.
With major allies staying away and concrete progress on the ground elusive, the initiative faces mounting pressure to prove that it can deliver more than pledges, symbolism and political spectacle.
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