With the establishment of his own “Peace Council”, Donald Trump is smashing the international legal order to pieces. This dangerous shadow-UN conjures up images of the 1930s, when the disappearance of global rules led to a world conflagration.

A crisis between the US and the other NATO countries over Greenland has – for the time being – been averted. But in the shadow of that, Trump is busy with something far more far-reaching, steering international diplomacy toward a dangerous tipping point. It concerns the Board of Peace (Peace Council) that Trump has brought into being in Washington.

In November 2025, the UN Security Council had formally agreed, via Resolution 2803, to such a council as a temporary administration for the reconstruction of Gaza. But this initiative goes much further. The council, which is chaired by Trump himself, is presented in recent official documents as a global mechanism for conflict management. 

Leaked documents show that the council has all the trappings of a shadow UN. A few days ago, Trump said that the Peace Council “could” replace the UN. So what officially began as a body for the reconstruction of Gaza, with UN approval, is now developing into a direct attack on the United Nations.

The UN is certainly not perfect. The composition of the Security Council is problematic[1], and the permanent members have a veto right that has been abused for decades. But there is a big difference between a flawed system that must be reformed and a parallel system that replaces the idea of international law with the law of the sponsor.

A New Mafia Club

The composition of this Peace Council reads like a blueprint for a new world order, in which the traditional diplomat makes way for the dealmaker. At the top stands Donald Trump himself as chairman for life, flanked by a close circle of confidants such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and the influential real-estate magnate and top negotiator Steve Witkoff.

They form the hard core of an administration that is supplemented with heavyweights from the financial world, including the president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga, and venture capitalists such as Marc Rowan of Apollo Global Management. 

By also involving seasoned figures such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Dutch diplomat Sigrid Kaag in the implementation, the council tries to project a whiff of international experience and pragmatism, while the real direction remains firmly in the hands of Mar-a-Lago.

In this way, the basis of international cooperation is traded for a system of personal loyalty. Such a power structure is unprecedented in modern history. Trump has a personal veto right and the exclusive authority to appoint or remove member states. 

The scope of the initiative is already evident from the list of invitees, which spans more than 60 countries and thereby constitutes a direct challenge to the universality of the UN.

While allies such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Argentine President Javier Milei immediately expressed their support, the invitation has also been extended broadly to regional players such as Turkey, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates to ensure stability in Gaza. Netanyahu too, the architect of the genocide in Gaza, is becoming a member of the council.

Countries that want a permanent seat must pay for it: a contribution of one billion dollars guarantees a place at the table. Those who do not pay get a temporary seat of three years, entirely dependent on the favor of the chairman.

The result is a hybrid power body of billionaires, intelligence services, and technocrats who jointly decide on the future of conflict areas, over the heads of the local population and detached from international law. You could also describe it as a mafia-UN. As if it were an IPO, Trump wants to have the founding charter of the council signed in Davos.

Shadow of the League of Nations

This scenario is frighteningly reminiscent of the 1930s. At the time, the League of Nations, the predecessor of the UN, was paralyzed step by step. Fascist and authoritarian regimes saw international rules as an obstacle to their own urge for expansion and power politics.

When Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and Nazi Germany openly began to tear down the postwar treaty system (among other things by rearming), they left the League of Nations, and this body became a paper tiger without its own means of power. 

Just as then, we now see that the US trades universal rules for its own parallel structures and opportunistic deals, with all the consequences that entails.

When the great powers abandoned the League of Nations for their own “deals,” the world slid toward the total destruction of the Second World War. Trump’s Peace Council threatens to do exactly the same by making irrelevant the only place where countries still talk on the basis of law: the UN.

Wake-up Call

Just like in the 1930s, the rise of the extreme right translates not only into the dismantling of democratic institutions but also into reckless warmongering. The establishment of this Peace Council is a frontal attack on the shared values that were laboriously built up after 1945. The council is a symptom of a collapsing legal order.

If the world allows the UN to be replaced by a privatized power club, we repeat the fatal mistakes of the 1930s and head toward a new world conflagration. This initiative must be a compelling wake-up call for us all.

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Marc Vandepitte is a member of the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity and was an observer during the presidential elections in Venezuela. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Note

[1] The composition reflects the world of 1945, not that of today: Africa and Latin America are underrepresented, while countries such as India, Brazil, or Nigeria have no permanent voice. And without its own executive power, the Council depends on member states to enforce decisions, which sometimes makes it seem powerless or selective.

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