Dictators, Invaders and Trump's motley crew on the Board of Peace
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Originally intended to be a small group overseeing a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump's Board of Peace has evolved into something much bigger. Apparently "a lot of great people" want to join, but who’s going to pay the billion dollars to sit on it? And what are Trump's real aspirations for the Board of Peace? On today’s show we try and break down what he’s hoping to achieve, whether the UN should feel threatened and why there’s no mention of Gaza in the draft text.
Later, we are joined by Peter Frankopan - did Trump “get" Greenland or has NATO just found a way to make him think so?
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK commercial banking, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.7 | This is a global player original podcast. Today we're announcing more details regarding the Board of Peace, |
| 0:16.5 | so important. This board has the chance to be one of the most consequential bodies ever created. |
| 0:22.6 | And it's my enormous honor to serve as its chairman. I was very honored when they asked me to do it. |
| 0:28.6 | We had an idea to do it and then they came. They said, you'll be the chairman. |
| 0:32.6 | When they asked me to do it, there was no they, there was no election. Donald Trump, let's be candid about this, appointed himself to be the chairman of the Board of Peace and when he decides to stand down, he will choose the successor. |
| 0:53.1 | We want names, Donald. We want to know who elected you to be |
| 0:58.3 | the chairman of the Board of Peace. And what on earth is it? He's not right to say that every |
| 1:05.4 | country wants to join. There is a huge amount of unease about being part of this Board of Peace because it will include |
| 1:13.1 | Russia and Belarus and other states that we might once have called an axis of evil. Is he trying |
| 1:20.4 | to set up a competitor to the UN? Welcome to the newsagents. The Newsagents. |
| 1:31.1 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:31.9 | It's John. |
| 1:32.5 | It's Emily. |
| 1:48.9 | And honestly, the Board of Peace, which has obviously been launched with some fanfare in Davos, where Donald Trump is, price of admission, if you want to join the Board of Peace, is $1 billion. Not entirely clear where the $1 billion goes to. I'm sure accounts will be published. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of |
| 1:55.4 | money. It's much more than my season ticket for Tottenham Hotspur. And at least I get to watch football. |
| 1:59.7 | Not very good football, but I get to watch football. I don't know quite what anyone's getting for this billion dollars |
| 2:04.8 | that everyone is paying. And the New York Times just has this delicious line in it, |
| 2:09.4 | where it talks about the Board of Peace and how it's going to work. And it says, |
| 2:14.1 | one man has the power to veto decisions, approve the agenda, invite members, |
| 2:19.8 | dissolve the board entirely and designate his own successor. There are no prizes for guessing |
| 2:25.4 | who that person is. So it's a board of peace that is more like a pyramid, I think, with one emperor at the top. Look, there are two ways of |
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