President Trump plans to announce on Thursday that member nations of his Board of Peace will commit $5 billion toward a historic effort to rebuild Gaza and offer thousands of personnel to maintain security and peace during the reconstruction.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the agenda on Wednesday, a day before an inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington.
“That will be part of the discussion tomorrow,” Ms. Leavitt said. “How can we maintain security? First, you must achieve security to get to prosperity, which is sort of the second part of this plan.”
More than 20 nations plan to send officials to the meeting at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.
Mr. Trump created the Board of Peace to oversee the implementation of the U.S.-backed Gaza ceasefire agreement and settle international conflicts, particularly in places where the United Nations or other entities fail.
Some Western allies have resisted the effort, worrying it will upset the established order that flows through the U.N.
Canada expressed interest in the body, only for Mr. Trump to disinvite the northern neighbor after Prime Minister Mark Carney rebuked Mr. Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Mr. Trump hosted a charter-signing for the Board of Peace during the Davos meetings.
At Davos, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner outlined a detailed and ambitious plan for rebuilding Gaza.
The strip of land between Israel and Egypt was devastated by Israeli strikes on the terrorist group Hamas, which controls Gaza and attacked Israeli towns in October 2023, killing more than 1,200 people.
Ms. Leavitt said media members were once “bewildered” by Mr. Trump’s ambitious rebuilding plans.
“But we are well underway in doing that, and it’s a historic accomplishment for this president,” Ms. Leavitt said.
The Vatican said Tuesday that it will not accept an invitation to the Board of Peace, citing its own unique nature and the role it says it believes the U.N. should play.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said that “one concern is that at the international level it should above all be the U.N. that manages these crisis situations.”
“This is one of the points on which we have insisted,” he said.
Ms. Leavitt called the Vatican’s decision “deeply unfortunate.”
“Of course, the administration wants all those who were invited to join the Board of Peace to join,” she said. “This president has a very bold and ambitious plan and vision to rebuild and reconstruct Gaza, which is well underway because of the Board of Peace.”
Mr. Trump will oversee the peace meeting as he juggles international negotiations in both hemispheres. He is tapping into Venezuelan oil reserves and trying to tip the South American nation toward democracy after a daring U.S. raid to capture President Nicolas Maduro.
He also imposed a fuel embargo on Cuba in an attempt to rid the island of its communist government.
Most notably, U.S. and Iranian negotiators are working to reach a deal that would limit Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Negotiators met in Geneva, Switzerland, this week but did not strike a deal.
“We’re still very far apart on some issues,” Ms. Leavitt said. “I believe the Iranians are expected to come back to us with some more details in the next couple of weeks.”
Mr. Trump has threatened to strike Iran with the U.S. military if the Islamic Republic does not reach a satisfactory deal over its nuclear program.
• Brad Matthews contributed to this article.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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