Donald Trump has invited Australia to join his new Board of Peace, a Trump led body he says will help bring peace. The guards of a new.
International oversight body, the Board of Peace. We call it the Board of Peace. Sort of a beautiful name, the Board of Peace.
But the invitation comes with a warning. Some leaders say the Board could undermine the United Nations, and Trump himself has suggested it might even replace it.
You want your Board of Peace to replace the UN?
Well it, mate?
I mean, the UN just hasn't been very helpful. I'm a big fan of the UN potential, but it has never lived up to US potential.
Trump has spent years attacking the United Nations as ineffective, and this term his administration has moved to pull the US out of dozens of UN agencies. So is this a peace plan or a power play? I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to seven AM today you and analyst at International Crossis Group Maya Anga on the real agenda behind Trump's Board of Pace and whether Astria would be
wise to join. It's Friday, January twenty three. My You've been wading the chatter for Donald Trump's so called Board of Pace so tell me about the board and what's slided out in this draft document.
So the Board of Peace was originally authorized by the UN Security Council in November, meant to oversee the future of the peace process in Gaza. The charter document that we have seen sent out to countries with invitations to join this week is a much more expansive version of what was originally authorized, and I think it's shocked many now.
The charter is actually quite short for a new type.
Of international institute or organization, and the thing that is clearest is that it is meant to formalize and institutionalize Donald Trump's power as kind of the chairman or head of a new organization. It's not the United States, it's not set to a particular term, but instead he has the power to be chairman of this for life.
The leaders of the Arab world and Israel and everybody involved asked me to do this, so it would be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of the United States. It's what I want.
Is Something important to note is though even though the Board of Pieces authorization has to do with Gaza, the charter itself doesn't mention it. It explains the fact that it is meant to be a new institution to solve threats essentially to international peace and security. But I think there's still a big question for many as to why
this has come now. You know, Trump has critiqued international organizations like the UN Security Council, the primary body that deals with in our national peace and security, for being unable to really step up in the face of major conflicts.
And we have seen that it's a fair critique across.
The board, from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan that the politics of the Council has meant that the legitimacy of it as a you know, effective body has really reduced. But I think many are still unsure about the actual aims, how expansive this is. We have a kind of Gaza board which goes under the broader board. Is this going to be replicated against other contexts? You know, there's much to still be seen.
So I was this Trump trying to actually replace the U in itself because it IDs much Lucky said let's lock a Gaza specific organization and we'll lock a fanning chatter of a new international body. Is that what he's trying to do?
He so US officials have said that he is not trying to replace the UN Security Council, but this is not an alternative, but something that will act in parallel.
When he's talked.
About it, he has been clear to say, you know, the UN is not effective and therefore we need bodies like this.
I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn't need a Board of Peace, but the United Nations. And you know, with all the wars I settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war.
Now.
The Board of Peace itself, though, is only even if it replicated the work of the Security Council, it's only one very small part of the broader UN system. The Security Council deploys over sixty thousand peacekeepers. It oversees fourteen different sanctions regimes. You know, It rits and helps to delegate mandates for humanitarian operations which help provide for millions of people around the globe, and it has an immense amount of resourcing even if the organization is in financial crisis.
Right now, the Board of Peace, as it is laid out, while it seeks to bring world leaders together to have dialogue with President Trump, having the ultimate veto, it doesn't really outline how it would replace many of these critical functions.
Tchamp has sent a copy of the draft chad Or alongside a letter of invitation to about sixty countries. Who has he invaded and what is the response.
Largely being so, it's a mix of countries that he's invited. Some are his close friends, such as Argentinian President Malay and Hungarian President Orbon. Others are traditional American allies, from the French to the Canadians to the Norwegians, and others are you know, the great powers that we see in the world. Vladimir Putin, Shu Jingping each received invitations.
I think that the reception has been varied.
We'll say to the least, you have some countries who have enthusiastically joined on board. Those are Trump's friends like Hungary, Argentina, Kazakhstan. You have others who have more cautiously signed on while still trying to reaffirm the principles that were authorized under
for the continuation of the peace process in Gaza. The Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Katsar Ejat and others kind of put a joint statement affirming this and then you have some like France, like Sweden, who have said, no, we're going to decline this invitation. This is not under the tenets of an international system that we agree with urnning. French President Emmanuel Macrone has rejected President Donald Trump's invitation to join.
A proposed Board of peace overseeing.
Gaza, citing concerns it could undermine the United Nations.
What I'll do is, if they feel like Costo, I'll put a two hundred percent tariff for his wines and champagnes.
Australia has also been invoted. But is it to accept this invitation? Just speculating him, Why is it in Australia's interest to accept this invitation.
I don't think it is in Australia's interest to accept the invitation. I think it's in Australia's interests to take the approach that, for example, Canada has done, which is to not outright turn down the invitation, therefore potentially triggering retaliatory tariffs or actions, but instead to set preconditions that
you know are not actually going to be met. The Canadians have set preconditions related to the spending of this one billion dollars that Trump has talked about in order to gain permanent membership on the Board of Peace, and it's unlikely that Trump would accede to these demands, and so likely the Canadians are going to be able to say, well, you know, we're not declining, but we're just waiting for these changes to be made because all world leaders are
having to negotiate this balance where this is a deeply unfair international board which premises Trump above all else and allows him to make decisions to shut down the decisions of every other world leader. But at the same time he has shown it very clear that he's vindictive when leaders don't sign up to what he wants.
And what is the reaction banged from the UN Maya.
There has been a lot of quiet concern in the hallways of the UN over the past couple of days. I'm based here in New York, and it is the number one thing that everyone is talking about in the UN itself. There is a feeling that this is a threat to the very nature of the international order that has been set up in the pulse World War era. The UN is at a state of crisis as it is both a financial and a legitimacy crisis, and it is increasingly kind.
Of boxed out of mediation and political efforts.
Part of this is the UN's fault itself, it has shown itself to be a weak actor under the Secretary General. But part of it is the fact that other member states, including and especially President Trump, have not opened up the space for the UN to kind of play that political role. So I think there's a lot of concern that this is a formalization of a pattern that we've been seeing over the past year, and even farther than.
That, coming up, what happens to Gaza if the Board of Pace falls to paces.
Well.
Donald Trump has been pitching these as a response to UN failure and has been a long vocal critic of the UN Security Council. Where does that criticism stand from?
So, Donald Trump's political and foreign policy approach is that these institutions should, more than anything else, fit American interests. He says, the United States is the country that pays in the most to the institution, and it should run in accordance with the way that the United States think it should. Now, the way that the Security Council structure is set up means that there are five countries with permanent vetos.
The US has one of those, but.
China, Russia, and the United Kingdom and France also have veto power, though France and the UK actually haven't used there since nineteen eighty nine, and so the US have found themselves frustrated over being unable to pursue some of the policies that they see in their interest because of the Russian and Chinese use of the vetos. In the same way, many members stay critique the Security Council because
they see it as an unfair institution. The fact that the United States has a veto for example, and so there's been decades of the majority of countries in the world pushing for Security Council reform. But this Board of Peace is three, four or five steps back from what they're asking for. It's moving in the opposite direction of what they've been campaigning.
Sorry, the why that the board is drafted at the moment does a guy winning way knee fixing the compliants of the U and Security Council.
I mean, there are different critiques about the Security Council. One is a very real critique about its effectiveness. And it is true that a body with one unilateral leader is going to be more effective about pushing policy through than one that is meant to come to agreement among fifteen members and must come to agreement among at least
nine with no veto of the permanent five. But at the same time, if these decisions are not with the entirety of world membership, if not all of the countries involved are there, if it doesn't hold the legit miscia being based in international law and the charter and tenets of the system, then how effective is it actually going
to be? And on the other big critique of the Security Council, which is that it is an unequal institution which reinforces existing power dynamics, I mean this is this is going even farther down that route, and.
The spot being initially critical of this body, Benjamin Nittanya, who has agreed to join, has significant as that.
I think it's something that many of us are watching because the fact that the Board of Peace itself does not have any Palestinians on its executive board, and you haven't seen the State of Palestine being invited to join this, So I think many are concerned about the implications that that will have. And I do think that Nanna, who will absolutely try to leverage his position on the Board
of Peace to further influence policy on Gaza. But Nenyahu has a direct line to Trump anyways, and I don't think being one member on a broader Board of Peace is going to increase his leverage more than being able to just pick up the phone and call Donald Trump any time of day.
Male. We are currently saying a huge fragmentation of what you could call the old order. What's the logalhood that this does actually shape up the be a rival to the UN Security Council, or at least on the mind it's work moving forward.
Yeah, I mean, if this Board of Peace does get off the ground, it will be a point of fracture for the international system as we understand it. I can't imagine a scenario in which you actually have Russia and China, these big powers who hold vetos within the Security.
Council, actually signing up to this.
So I think if it does get off the ground, the biggest likelihood is it just becomes a club of Trump's friends and so you have negotiations, you have discussions, but more than anything, you have disunity increasingly in the system. You know, the Security Council has many issues, and I'm one of the first to critique it, that's kind of my job. But it is the place where all countries
can come together to discuss issues across a table. And when you have a further fracturing of that system, when you move people away from that ability for dialogue and cooperation, it is only going to make compromise and diplomacy more difficult.
And finally, Maya, what does this mean for placing Gaza.
I think this is a big question mark because when we originally had envisioned the Board of Peace, it was meant to help to solve, you know, moving forward the peace process in Gaza. But if the Board of Peace fails to get off the ground, it could also have reciprocal implications.
On the peace process in Gaza as well.
You know, if the Board of Peace falls apart at the executive level, do the technical committees fall apart, does the executive board for Gaza fall apart?
Where are we at?
Are we going to see an increase in Israeli attacks. It's a really big concern and I think for those following the conflict quite closely, there is actually a feeling that there needs to be an in this Board of Peace to allow the further process to move forward. And that's why you saw all of these let Arab leaders sign on to.
It Riya, thank you so much for speaking with us, Thanks for having me. Also in the news, the coalition has officially split, with National's leader David little Proud declaring the partnership untenable after a mass resignation from the shadow front bench. Liberal leader Susan Lee is under growing pressure, with some in the Liberal Party suggesting her leadership may not survive the fallout in wake of hate speech legislation passing through both houses of Parliament in response to the
Bondi attack. We will have a full recap of the week in Parliament tomorrow with Amyymikus. And A fifteen year old boy has been arrested after allegedly young's threats and anti Semitic abuse at a group of students in Melbourne. Police say the boy was in a vehicle that nearly struck one of the students as it ran a red light. The arrested team is also being questioned over other offenses, including aggravated burglary and vehicle theft. A second suspect is
also being sought. I'm Daniel James. You've been listening to seven AM. We'll be back tomorrow.