Trump touts pledges at 1st Board of Peace meeting

What happened

President Donald Trump Thursday hosted the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace, announcing that nine countries had pledged nearly $7 billion to rebuild Gaza and five countries had agreed to contribute thousands of troops to an international stabilization force. Trump also said the U.S. would contribute $10 billion to his board, without disclosing how it would be used or whether Congress had agreed to fund the pledge. Some foreign leaders were among the representatives from the 27 countries that agreed to join the board, while another 21 countries and the European Union sent observers to the meeting.

Who said what

In a 47-minute speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Trump declared the Board of Peace the “most prestigious board ever put together” and said it would “strengthen up the United Nations” and also “almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly.” Other speakers laid out some plans for rebuilding Gaza and implementing the teetering Trump-brokered peace plan.

The meeting “was like the United Nations General Assembly, if everything about the United Nations revolved around Donald Trump,” Shawn McCreesh said at The New York Times. Trump “cracked old jokes. Got people to pay money into something he’s named after himself. Hyped up his wife’s movie. Trashed his enemies. Aired familiar grievances. Congratulated himself.” It had the “trappings of another Trump vanity project,” Politico said, but the financial commitments “were concrete,” and despite the “skepticism from Democrats, Europeans, the United Nations and Palestinians,” the Board of Peace “won considerable momentum this week.”

What next?

Among the “major questions likely to test the effectiveness of the board in the months ahead” are how Hamas will disarm and whether Israel will withdraw its troops from the Palestinian enclave, Reuters said.