Trump recently held his first meeting of his “Board of Peace”. Twenty-six countries have joined Trump as founding members. What is most interesting and noteworthy is which countries have joined and which countries have declined. It can tell you a lot about the direction Trump is taking our country and who we align with in the world.
Freedom House is an organization that exists to protect democracy and track freedom around the world. It has developed a scoring system for how free each nation in the world is, based on both political rights and civil liberties. It assigns each country a “Freedom in the World” score ranging from 0 (no freedom) to 100 (full freedom). Of course, authoritarian dictatorships would be at the low end and democratic nations fall at the high end. You can view the full methodology and results for each of 208 nations at this link:
https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores
A 0–30 score would be categorized as “Not Free”, 30–70 as “Partly Free” and 70–100 as “Free”.
With that in mind…of the 26 member nations on Trump’s Board of Peace:
- 13 are in the “Not Free” category (authoritarians)
- 10 are “Partly Free” (which means they lack either political rights or civil rights)
- Only 3 are considered “Free” (and even those are on the low end of that score range)
So, 23 of the 26 nations are either authoritarian or leaning authoritarian nations. The free, democratic nations of the world have declined to participate in this absurd display of faux peace seeking.
While Trump is creating his own coalition of nations consisting of mostly non-free, authoritarian regimes, he is destroying our relations with the free world, such as with NATO, the actual organization that is responsible for more peace keeping in the world than any in the history of mankind.
Just for comparison, the average score on the Freedom House analysis for Trump’s Board of Peace nations is 38.5/100 while the average score for NATO member countries is 86.8/100. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which organization would be better for the United States to align with.
But here we are. Actively destroying our place in the world and it will have lasting consequences.
The meeting itself
As for the meeting itself, it was quite bizarre to say the least. Here are a few takes:
- It was mainly a meeting where the authoritarian leaders, in turn, gave a little speech that was mostly just praising Trump for this or for that, much like his cabinet meetings.
- Initially, they are all talking about how they are going to recreate Gaza into a vibrant, successful place. Note that Palastine is not included on this Board, so it seems they will have no say in any of those plans.
- Then the head of FIFA (yes, the soccer organization that recently created the FIFA Peace Prize and presented it to Trump) gave a presentation on how FIFA will partner with the Board of Peace to spread soccer throughout the world. This seems to be the main peace strategy for the organization, as measured by its presentation. They are going to build soccer fields and professional stadiums in Gaza and other parts of the world in order to create peace between people. Peace through sport is fine as part of a strategy, but this seemed way over represented in this meeting. And, of course, we already have, you know, the Olympics for that. I’m willing to bet that Trump will somehow get a cut of all of the FIFA proceeds that come from this. Who will bet against me?
- The Founding Member nations of the Board are each pledging a billion dollars to the cause. Who controls all of these funds? Well, Trump, as Chairman of the Board, of course has ultimate control.
- The funds will initially be used for rebuilding infrastructure in Gaza. How likely will it be that we will see Trump hotels and golf courses included in that rebuilding? Who will bet against me on that?
- The meeting ended with Trump and the rest of his authoritarian counterparts patting each other on the back while The Village People’s “YMCA” blared from the speakers. I’m not even kidding about that.
In the end
In the end, this is just another way for Trump to feed his ego and line his pockets. Oh, did I forget to mention that Trump also announced that the United States would be contributing $10 billion to the Board. And guess who would have full control of that $10 billion? The Chairman of the Board, of course, which Trump appointed himself as and included the nifty little bit in the bylaws that the Chairman will appoint his own successor, you know, like the King’s throne is passed on to his heir…
