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Assuming his intention was to mark the first anniversary of his return to the White House, President Trump couldn’t have picked a more suitable time or event to launch the Board of Peace for Gaza.
His decision to hold the launch Thursday at a Davos gathering of world leaders highlights Trump’s role in trying to stop the war between Israel and Hamas and start the massive rebuilding of Gaza.
It also reflects his unprecedented global footprint and illustrates once again that he is an American president like no other.
As such, the event is something of a coming-out party that shows how his America First concept is now doing double duty on the international stage.
By taking the show on the road, it’s as if he is saying, pay no attention to the hand-to-hand combat battles over his presidency raging in Washington, legacy media newsrooms and blue state capitals.
Rather, he aims to reframe the meaning of his return to the top of the political heap at an elite gathering in the Swiss Alps.
Harsh criticism
Proof that Trump retains his unique gift for poking the bear of conventional thinking and the gatekeepers of the so-called norms is contained in the harsh criticism being lobbed at the Board of Peace.
The target, in addition to his being chairman, is its design, which gives the board the freedom to get involved in virtually all kinds of international disputes.
That license, if carried out with Trump’s energy and determination, could end up undercutting the United Nations and diverting its financial and convening power.
For UN critics, it’s hard to believe that there really are people who are concerned that the UN could be hurt.
Oh, please, bring it on!
Informed people know that the UN has proven itself to be worse than a bust in Gaza and elsewhere. The fact that it holds something of a monopoly power over efforts to resolve international disputes is a large part of the problem.
Having competition can’t hurt and might actually push the UN to be more energetic and make an honest effort to fulfill the grand visions that led to its creation.
A fair reading of the Board of Peace charter, unveiled this week, is that Trump wants it to be that competition. And under his leadership, he envisions it as a game-changer in ending bloody conflicts.
Naturally, the usual Trump haters reacted furiously, saying that he, with his invitation list and a membership fee of $1 billion, was setting up the board as an American-dominated body that would cut out many UN-member states and Turtle Bay fat cats.
That concern, predictably highlighted by The New York Times and scads of faceless international functionaries on Manhattan’s East Side, is unintentionally a compliment in that it recognizes the board as a serious venture and Trump as a serious peace-maker.
Typical overreaction
Naturally, the battle over it is already starting to sound like the battle over nearly everything Trump says and does.
His talent for provoking his critics into overreacting and saying and doing dumb things remains intact.
Take the immigration issue. No major Democrats objected to Joe Biden’s open border policy that allowed 10 million or more unvetted foreign migrants to enter America.
It was left to Trump to close the border and clean up the mess, and he did the first part seemingly overnight and without much controversy.
Yet the deportation issue continues to play out in ways that are not as clear-cut. The battle to remove foreign students who violated their visas and engaged in antisemitism and other prohibited activities was largely stymied by the courts.
Similarly, the White House effort to punish universities that allowed the mayhem has waxed and waned without a consistent outcome.
One of the hottest battles is over the role of ICE agents in apprehending those who should not be in the country, and Democrats have seized on unpopular tactics as an opening.
Naturally, they’ve overplayed their hands by calling the agents Nazis and Trump Hitler. But polls suggest much of the country does not like the optics surrounding the raids, which should serve as a warning to the White House.
Powerful message
A related move is Trump’s bold effort to stop the flow of illegal drugs coming from Venezuela. Bombing drug boats and snatching strongman Nicolás Maduro on a federal warrant sent a powerful message to the cartels and their partners in Iran and elsewhere while showcasing the awesome power and sophistication of our military.
The message to friends and foes alike was that this president is not afraid to enforce his policies.
Once again, Dems are taking the low road, so low that some accused Secretary of War Pete Hegseth of a “war crime” for targeting drug runners.
Unfortunately, Greenland offers an example of another kind. The president’s fierce determination to secure ownership of the world’s largest island is defensible in terms of national security but his tactics are not proving to be persuasive at home or abroad.
The possibility that his demands and threats could shatter NATO is an absurdly high price to pay. Instead of achieving his goal of boosting national security, losing NATO would severely damage it.
As a prominent Trump supporter put it, “One day we’ll need NATO. But if he continues to behave this way, he’ll mark himself as not a trustworthy partner.”
Ditto for the president’s plan to impose tariffs as a penalty on European allies that don’t support US ownership of Greenland.
If that leads to higher domestic prices in America, the punishment will hurt the wrong people.
The unseemly fight underscores the fact that, despite Trump’s demands, America cannot simply impose its will and still make and keep allies.
A warning sign came with how Canada reacted to Trump’s pressure on Greenland by signing a trade agreement with China. Canada will remove tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles that it imposed along with the US, while China will cut its tariffs on Canadian agricultural products.
A veteran GOP operative smartly summed up the gamble Trump is making over Greenland this way: “That’s far too many chips to wage for what?”
Issue for the midterms
Any conversation about Trump is not complete without mention of the midterm elections, which are now less than 10 months away.
A prevailing view among Republicans is that Dems have no serious leadership and no popular issues, other than just attacking Trump.
True, but the GOP margins in both houses are small and shrinking. Both chambers are in play, yet Trump has been feuding with some Republicans in the House and Senate.
Even more important, a consistent message from voters is that, from Greenland to the economy to health care, the president and his party have serious repair work to do before November.