Trump launches Board of Peace in Davos ceremony

Leaders and representatives of at least 18 nations were on stage

Argentine President Javier Milei and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sign the founding charter of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace during a ceremony on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

 U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday launched his Board of Peace at a ceremony on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, attended by representatives of at least 18 nations.

Leaders and representatives from Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kosovo, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan were among those on stage as Trump spoke during the signing ceremony, The Guardian reported.

The board, which will initially focus on solidifying the ceasefire with Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, “can do pretty much whatever we want to do” once it is “completely formed,” said Trump in remarks.

“And we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” he added.

“I’ve always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it, but there’s tremendous potential in the United Nations, and you have some great people at the United Nations,” the president said.

“You know, on the eight wars that I ended, I never spoke to the United Nations about any of them,” he went on. “They tried, I guess, in some of them, but they didn’t try hard enough.”

The Board of Peace can be “something very, very unique for the world,” Trump continued. “The first steps toward a brighter day for the Middle East and a much safer future for the world are unfolding right before your very eyes.”

The new body will seek to end “decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace for that region and for the whole region of the world,” he said.

“We’re going to have peace in the world,” the president declared.

As the signing ceremony got underway, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared, “The charter is now in full force, and the Board of Peace is now an official international organization.”

Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy for peace missions, told attendees that Trump “created a sense of hope for what the future can bring in Gaza and in all other places where the Board of Peace will operate.

“I remember when the president asked Jared [Kushner], I, and of course our great secretary of state [Marco Rubio] to work on something that the world thought was impossible and unattainable,” the envoy said in his speech. “But the president—on this peace deal for Gaza, as on all other deals we work on his behalf—said we had to try and, of course, we were inspired by that.

“We have achieved a peace deal in Gaza. We have brought the hostages home all of the bodies, except for one, and we will bring that body home too,” Witkoff vowed.

Witkoff thanked “my good friend from Qatar,” Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others.

During the event, Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a Middle East real estate developer, presented plans to disarm Hamas and develop the Gaza Strip into a free market hub for tourism with an airport and seaport after U.S.-backed reconstruction efforts conclude by 2035.

President Donald J. Trump signs and ratifies the Board of Peace charter, officially making the Board of Peace an international organization.

THE PEACE PRESIDENT 🕊️🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/J7v8d0S8m7

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 22, 2026

Netanyahu on Wednesday accepted Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace. While the body’s efforts will initially focus on Gaza, it “is like a new United Nations,” Netanyahu told Knesset lawmakers on Monday.

Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that the Board of Peace has “some controversial people. But these are people that get the job done. These are people that have tremendous influence. If I put all babies on the board, that wouldn’t be very much.”

He continued, “I think the Board of Peace will be the most prestigious board ever, and it’s going to get a lot of work done that the United Nations should’ve done. And we’ll work with the United Nations, but the Board of Peace is going to be special. We’re going to have peace.”

Trump went on to mention the U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear project in June as the platform that facilitated peace in the Middle East.

“It started off with Gaza in the Middle East. We’ve got peace in the Middle East. Tremendous peace in the Middle East. Nobody thought that was possible. And that happened by taking out the Iran nuclear threat. Without that, it could’ve never happened,” said Trump.

Jewish News Service, January 22, 2026