Nick Turse
March 2 2026

An Intercept analysis finds that every single Board of Peace member state has been rebuked for human rights violations.

AT THE INAUGURAL meeting of his self-styled Board of Peace earlier this month, Donald Trump declared peace in the Middle East while simultaneously threatening to plunge the region into devastating conflict by again attacking Iran. Within 10 days, Trump followed through on that promise, teaming up with Israel to unleash a widespread campaign of deadly airstrikes in Iran that have thrust the Middle East into regional war.

It was one of numerous incongruities that surfaced during the bizarre first meeting of Trump’s Temu United Nations.

“In terms of prestige, there’s never been anything close because these are the greatest world leaders, almost everybody has accepted, and the ones that haven’t will,” Trump proclaimed before he grasped a diminutive gold-colored mallet and gaveled out the conclave to strains of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a member of the group’s executive board, could be seen standing alone in the background as Trump glad-handed some of the assembled world leaders. Rubio skulked off before Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit “Gloria” began to play.

An Intercept analysis finds that every member state of the Board of Peace has been rebuked for human rights violations, including many by Rubio’s own State Department. Those not currently on the State Department list after a 2025 whitewash of countries’ human rights reports shielding Trump’s allies from honest assessments were previously cited by the department.

Originally conceived as a means to oversee the shaky Gaza peace plan, Trump has recast the Board of Peace as an international body under his control and direction, ostensively devoted to ending or preventing wars. “We’re also going to maybe take it a step further where we see hot spots around the world,” Trump decreed. “We will help Gaza, we will straighten it out, we’ll make it successful, we will make it peaceful, and we will do things like that in other spots.”

Trump even suggested his group would provide oversight of the U.N. “The Board of Peace is going to almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly,” Trump said.

As chair of the Board of Peace, with a lifetime appointment, Trump determines the council’s membership, chooses the executive board, and has the final say on all things since “decisions shall be made by a majority of the Member States present and voting, subject to the approval of the Chairman,” according to the Board’s charter. As chair, Trump is also the “final authority regarding the meaning, interpretation, and application” of the charter. Any amendments to the charter also must have Trump’s stamp of approval.

Trump controls the Board’s finances as chair, creating what looks to be a slush fund of international proportions. A $1 billion contribution secures permanent membership on the Board instead of a three-year appointment, which requires no payment. Trump said he also exacted promises of more than $7 billion from nine countries, although Board of Peace documents show only eight countries formally signed a pledge of their “intention to contribute funds to the Board of Peace.” For his part, Trump promised to siphon U.S. tax dollars — at least $10 billion — into the Board’s coffers. The Board of Peace, in turn, announced “more than $15 billion in funding commitments” for “humanitarian relief and reconstruction activities” in Gaza.

The Board’s charter states that it can acquire and dispose of “immovable and movable property, institute legal proceedings, open bank accounts, receive and disburse private and public funds, and employ staff.” As chair, Trump has “exclusive authority to create, modify, or dissolve subsidiary entities as necessary or appropriate to fulfill the Board of Peace’s mission.” It remains unclear how all of the Boards’ funds will be spent and if there will be any meaningful supervision of the Board’s finances. The executive board — which Trump chooses and controls — provides “oversight mechanisms with respect to budgets, financial accounts, and disbursements,” according to the charter.

The Board says that the World Bank-administered Gaza Reconstruction and Development Fund “will operate under defined fiduciary controls, aligned with global best practices” and that an…

“AI-enabled digital infrastructure backbone will support procurement transparency and transform Gaza into a modern economy, reducing corruption risk and ensuring responsible stewardship of reconstruction capital for the benefit of Gaza’s residents.”

Traditional U.S. allies like the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, and Ukraine have all declined to join the Board of Peace. But the U.K., Italy, the European Union and 20 other nations did attend the inaugural Board of Peace meeting as observers.

In addition to Trump, Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, Trump son-in-law and diplomatic consiglieri Jared Kushner, and Kushner’s negotiating partner and Trump friend Steve Witkoff, numerous world leaders joined the inaugural meeting as their countries’ Board representatives. They included Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Argentine President Javier Milei, both staunch Trump allies and noted authoritarians. They and other leaders were gifted red MAGA-style hats emblazoned with “USA.”

Trump said other “great boards” were “peanuts” because unlike other governing bodies, almost all members of his Peace Board were “the head of a country.” While the executive board — which includes Trump, Rubio, Kushner, and Witkoff, among others — is made up of individuals, the Board of Peace itself is made up of member states. They constitute a veritable who’s who of global bad actors.

Longtime U.S. adversaries Russia and China, both consistent gross human rights abusers, have been invited to join. While those powers have yet to sign on, there are currently 28 members of the Board of Peace, according to its new website.

Source: boardofpeace.org/heads-of-state

All member states have been cited for human rights abuses in the State Department’s two most recent annual human rights reports, including for some of the gravest possible violations.

Last year, Rubio’s State Department issued sanitized human rights reportsthat soft-peddled abuses. But the analyses still cited allegations that 23 of the 27 foreign Board of Peace member states for arguably the worst crimes: unlawful or arbitrary killings or torture. Including the last Biden-era reports, the number rises to 25. Members of Trump’s Board are, in fact, among the worst human rights violators on the planet, chief among them Belarus, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

The State Department and White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Board of Peace did not reply to a request on X for public affairs’ contact information.

A report issued last summer by Rubio’s State Department took the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to task for “significant human rights issues” including credible reports of arbitrary or unlawful killings; disappearances; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; and arbitrary arrest and detention; among many other violations. “The government did not take credible steps or action to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses in a verifiable way,” according to that report.

Even Rubio’s State Department referenced reports that Israel conducted “arbitrary or unlawful killings” as well as “serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom.” A United Nations commission investigating the war in Gaza went further and established that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” said Navi Pillay, the chair of the commission, last September.

““The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza.”

Belarus is another wildly oppressive Board of Peace member-nation. Freedom House — a nongovernmental organization that advocates for human rights and gets the bulk of its funding from the U.S. government — calls that country “an authoritarian state in which elections are openly rigged and civil liberties are severely restricted.” The group noted that the Eastern European nation’s security forces “have violently assaulted and arbitrarily detained journalists and ordinary citizens who challenge Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime.” Last year, the State Department also called out Belarus for a raft of abuses including…

“torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices; [and] arbitrary arrest or detention.”

“War is peace” was one of the slogans on the facade of the Ministry of Truth, in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.” Trump’s Board of Peace exemplifies this same Orwellian doublethink in which contradictory ideas are cast as true. Israel’s and Belarus’s inclusion on the Board, for example, puts a spotlight on the startling disconnect between Trump’s league of rogue nations and its stated purpose.

“What we’re doing is very simple. Peace. It’s called the Board of Peace and it’s all about an easy word to say, but a hard word to produce — peace, but we’re going to produce it,”

said Trump at the February 19 meeting. But the Peace Board is filled with warmakers called out even by Rubio’s State Department. For instance, it accused Belarus of crimes of war including “serious abuses in a conflict, related to Belarus’ complicity in Russia’s war against Ukraine”; Indonesia for “arbitrary or unlawful killings” in “counterinsurgency operations against armed separatist groups”; Israel for “continued large-scale military operation in densely populated Gaza”; Pakistan for “serious abuses in a conflict”; and Turkey for “unlawful recruitment or use of children in armed conflict by government-supported armed groups outside of the country.”

The greatest offender to peace on the Board, however, be the United States. While Trump said “there’s nothing more important than peace” at the inaugural meeting, during his second term he has already launched attacks on Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, civilians in boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean — and, over the weekend, Iran.

The Trump administration also claims to be at war with at least 24 cartels and criminal gangs it will not name and has also threatened Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iceland, and Mexico.

“We have peace in the Middle East right now,” Trump declared in his rambling speech, during which he also threatened to again attack Iran to knock out a nuclear program that he said had already been “totally decimated.”

A 2025 survey of 25 nations around the world found that the publics in 17 of them saw the United States as the first or second greatest international threat to their country, including America’s neighbors, Canada (59 percent) and Mexico (68 percent). Just this month, a poll by the Allensbach Institute, a market research firm, found Germans see the U.S. as the second-greatest threat to world peace, surpassing China and edging closer to Russia.

First published of TheIntercept.com.

Shared via Creative Commons.