Commercialising Peace: A Strategic Risk

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The Trump administration’s reported proposal for a new international ‘Board of Peace’ is presented, at least in concept, as a corrective to what its proponents describe as the failures of existing multilateral diplomacy. As outlined in investigative reporting, the initiative is framed as a vehicle for delivering peace agreements more decisively than the United Nations or other international forums, bypassing vetoes, prolonged negotiations, and what President Trump has repeatedly characterised as institutional paralysis.

In this conception, the Board of Peace is not intended as a deliberative body or a standing multilateral institution in the traditional sense. Rather, it is envisaged as a selective forum of states deemed sufficiently committed, financially and politically, to warrant permanent participation. Peace is treated less as a collective process grounded in shared norms than as an outcome to be brokered through leverage, deal-making, and strong central authority.

It is against this stated ambition, speed, decisiveness, and personalised brokerage, that the design of the proposal becomes consequential. As reported by The Daily Beast, and subsequently referenced by Bloomberg, Reuters, and Fortune, participation in the proposed Board would be conditioned on exceptionally large financial contributions, reportedly up to USD 1 billion for permanent membership, while extraordinary authority would be concentrated in a single figure, Donald Trump himself.

It bears noting that while early accounts derived from investigative journalism, a draft charter has since been publicly circulated and published, outlining the proposed structure, membership criteria, and governance arrangements of the Board. Even so, as a proposed or exploratory model, the initiative raises serious policy and governance concerns that merit scrutiny.

On the basis of the publicly circulated draft charter, the proposal does not represent an isolated institutional experiment by the United States. It signals an effort to construct an alternative peace architecture, intended not merely to supplement existing multilateral mechanisms, but to bypass and potentially supplant them. In effect, it offers a parallel system for peace diplomacy that substitutes transactional participation and personalised authority for the principles of collective legitimacy embedded in the UN Charter system.

According to the reported draft charter, the proposed Board of Peace would distinguish sharply between states able to make very large financial contributions and those that cannot. Permanent membership would be reserved for the former, while other participating states would be limited to renewable, time-bound status. Agenda-setting authority, control over resources, and even succession arrangements would be centralised in the hands of the Board’s chair.

The White House has denied that membership would formally be “for sale.” Yet the reported structure suggests that financial capacity would function as the decisive criterion for influence, regardless of how it is framed publicly.

The problem here is not simply one of optics. It is structural. Peacebuilding and conflict resolution depend fundamentally on legitimacy, specifically on the perception that processes are inclusive, rules-based, and grounded in shared authority rather than wealth or personal power. An institutional model that monetises participation risks undermining the very conditions required for durable peace, particularly in contexts where inequality, exclusion, and grievance are already central drivers of conflict.

Beyond legitimacy concerns, such a design creates a structural incentive for corruption. When large “contributions” become the gateway to participation or influence, the boundary between voluntary support and coerced payment begins to erode. This risk is magnified when authority is concentrated in a single political figure who also commands exceptional political and economic power. In such a system, financial transfers are unlikely to remain neutral acts of support; they become instruments of leverage, favour-trading, and protection. Corruption in this context is not incidental, but a predictable outcome of the institutional design.

Multilateral institutions are often criticised for being slow and cumbersome, but these features reflect deliberate design choices, including dispersed power, negotiated consent, and institutional restraint. By contrast, the Board of Peace, as described, would collapse decision-making into a single political figure, weakening collective ownership. It would also likely invite resistance from states unwilling to subordinate their diplomatic autonomy to personalised discretion.

This approach reflects a longer ideological current within American politics. For decades, critics of multilateralism have argued that international institutions constrain national sovereignty, dilute executive authority, and limit freedom of action. What distinguishes the current proposal is the very effort to replace multilateral governance with a leader-centred, transaction-based alternative.

Viewed in isolation, the Board of Peace might be dismissed as an ill-conceived initiative. Viewed in context, it fits a broader pattern. Recent US policy has increasingly favoured selective engagement, financial conditionality, and ad hoc arrangements over institutional multilateralism. Withdrawals from, or funding suspensions affecting, international organisations have weakened the existing system, even as alternative mechanisms, often personalised and transactional, are advanced alongside it.

The result is not strategic ambiguity but strategic contradiction. The United States continues to assert leadership in peace diplomacy, yet promotes institutional designs that bypass or erode the frameworks that confer legitimacy on such leadership. Authority is claimed rhetorically while undermined architecturally.

Initial reactions from allied governments, as reported, have been cautious. This hesitation is unsurprising. For many US partners, particularly those invested in the UN Charter system, legitimacy in peace diplomacy is inseparable from principles of sovereign equality, shared governance, and accountability.

None of this is to suggest that the existing multilateral peace architecture is sufficient or beyond reform. Many institutions struggle with effectiveness and political relevance. But credible innovation in peacebuilding must deepen inclusion, strengthen accountability, and distribute authority more fairly. It cannot gate participation through financial thresholds or concentrate power in a single office.

Reform grounded in legitimacy may be slow and contested. Reform grounded in transaction may appear faster, but it is far more fragile.

The central danger of the Board of Peace proposal is not simply that it might fail. It is that it reframes peace itself as a function of deal-making rather than trust-building, of payment rather than participation, and of personal authority rather than institutional accountability. In doing so, it risks replacing a flawed multilateral system not with something more legitimate, but with something fundamentally less so.

History offers few examples in which peace imposed through personalised authority and financial leverage has endured; it offers many in which such arrangements entrenched inequality, fuelled resentment, and ultimately failed.

If the United States seeks to reclaim credibility as a peace broker, it will not do so by monetising access or centralising control. It will do so by recommitting, however imperfectly, to the deliberate, collective, and indispensable work of legitimate multilateral peacebuilding.

Related articles by this author:

The UN’s Withering Vine: A US Retreat from Global Governance (3-minute read)

Venezuela and the UN's Proxy War Moment (3-minute read)

The Danger of a Transactional Worldview (3-minute read)

The Choice Is Still Clear: Renewing the UN Charter at 80 (3-minute read)

Jordan Ryan is a member of the Toda International Research Advisory Council (TIRAC) at the Toda Peace Institute, a Senior Consultant at the Folke Bernadotte Academy and former UN Assistant Secretary-General with extensive experience in international peacebuilding, human rights, and development policy. His work focuses on strengthening democratic institutions and international cooperation for peace and security. Ryan has led numerous initiatives to support civil society organisations and promote sustainable development across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He regularly advises international organisations and governments on crisis prevention and democratic governance.