What Even Is Trump’s “Board of Peace”?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
Trump’s “Board of Peace” emerged from last year’s ceasefire negotiations to govern Gaza after the war. But since then, the board has evolved into a motley group of countries that are willing to pay a billion dollars to join a body that has Donald Trump as its chairman for life. They also have mostly stopped talking about Gaza.
Guest: Gregg Carlstom, Middle East Correspondent at The Economist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I have to admit, I feel a little weird asking economist reporter Greg Karlstrom about President |
| 0:12.8 | Trump's Board of Peace, given how much the word peace promises. The idea of the board grew out of last year's Gaza ceasefire agreement. |
| 0:25.3 | You know, what we've seen with that agreement is that it really hasn't been a peace agreement. |
| 0:29.3 | It's been to some extent a non-aggression pact that stopped the worst of the fighting, |
| 0:33.9 | but it's hardly been a peace agreement between Israel and Gaza, Israel and the |
| 0:38.0 | Palestinians. And so I think calling this the Board of Peace, at least as it relates to Gaza, |
| 0:43.0 | certainly oversells what it is and what it will do. That has not stopped Trump and his allies |
| 0:48.9 | from selling this post-war plan for the region, at least to the various countries willing to chip in a billion |
| 0:55.2 | dollars for membership. The board itself is like a 12-layer cake of post-war administration, |
| 1:02.4 | with Trump at the top, followed by folks like Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, |
| 1:07.9 | and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. |
| 1:16.5 | And then, you know, if you go a few layers down, you have a what is called a technocratic government of Palestinians, the ones who are actually meant to be there on the ground in Gaza, |
| 1:22.2 | meant to oversee what is actually happening with this ceasefire. |
| 1:26.1 | But there is such a long distance between the Board of Peace and what is actually happening with this ceasefire. But there is such a long distance between the Board of Peace |
| 1:30.0 | and what's actually going to happen in Gaza on the ground going forward. |
| 1:35.6 | Members of the Board of Peace are set to meet in Washington on Thursday. |
| 1:40.3 | What are you going to be watching for coming out of that meeting or reporting on around its outcomes? |
| 1:48.0 | I think the first question as it relates to Gaza is how much do they actually talk about Gaza at this Board of Peace meeting and how much do they talk about other things? |
| 1:59.3 | Again, this was created. This was announced late last year as being a Gaza-related board. |
| 2:06.6 | But what we've heard from Donald Trump and from other American officials over the past |
| 2:11.7 | couple of months has had nothing at all to do with Gaza. |
| 2:15.3 | They've talked about this almost as being a replacement |
... |
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