00:00We're coming out of that address there from Donald Trump as he kicked off the inaugural meeting of his Board
00:07of Peace.
00:08To speak more about that, I'm joined in the studio by France 24's James André.
00:13James was seeing there at that meeting that the members of the Board of Peace either seem to be Donald
00:18Trump's friends,
00:19people who want to be friends with Donald Trump or, you know, people who Trump are then praised in return.
00:26It kind of seems to be this club of the president's making.
00:30Well, yes, it does seem to be a bit of a club with, indeed, as you were saying, the president's
00:35allies,
00:36the ones who want to become allies, and then these countries that allegedly Donald Trump has made peace in.
00:43So he was talking about all his peace achievements as he sees them.
00:48And also, while the countries were directly involved in the situation in Gaza.
00:52Now, the problem is, this was the initial point of this board, and we do not have much more information.
00:59But yes, for now, what we have seen is basically a group of leaders with Donald Trump praising them, as
01:07you were saying,
01:07and indeed announcing a series of pledges.
01:11Meanwhile, we know that this Board of Peace was kind of put forward as part of the ceasefire plan for
01:17Gaza,
01:18with, you know, reconstruction of Gaza pitched as being the main task for this Board of Peace.
01:24So far, what we've heard from Donald Trump hasn't really cleared up any ambiguities around what the board will be
01:31doing to achieve that.
01:32Perhaps we'll hear later from U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff or Marco Rubio about that.
01:37But still, there's a lot of questions that remain, James.
01:40Well, there are a lot of questions.
01:41There are a lot of people who've been watching this Board of Peace arise and ask themselves if Donald Trump's
01:46ambition was not to replace the UN Security Council.
01:49It is still unclear.
01:51I mean, we've just listened to Donald Trump now for, you know, the best part of an hour,
01:56and it is still not clear what he's trying to achieve with this Board of Peace.
01:59What we do see, though, is more of the same, I'd say, strategy, which is his negotiators.
02:05He's been praising them a lot, both Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
02:09Steve Witkoff was sitting right behind the president during this address,
02:12explaining that, you know, that basically, in his view,
02:16all the world leaders that they've been tasked with negotiating with like them a lot.
02:21But, you know, there's no word for, for example, the State Department or even how, you know, diplomatically this Board
02:29of Peace is going to work.
02:31And then there's another big question, Mark, which is the fact that, indeed, if you read the statutes of this
02:35Board of Peace,
02:36which I've actually done, it is true that basically Donald Trump gets to choose and pick whoever is on or
02:42off the board.
02:43He can, you know, decide to revoke anyone at any given time.
02:46He can, basically, he is in absolute control of everything, and he is indeed with a group of leaders that,
02:52to some extent, he has a lot of control on.
02:55It's really interesting to see who is absent, actually, today, and that would include all the United States' traditional allies.
03:02You could speak of most of the European countries.
03:04We know that France, Germany, Italy have not cared to be part of this Board of Peace at this stage.
03:11And Mark Carney, for example, is the Canadian Prime Minister, was scheduled to come and has been basically revoked.
03:20So, you know, it is something which is very difficult to fathom exactly what it is and how it is
03:27going to work.
03:28What we do have, though, is indeed a group of roughly 45 nations represented with one task, which was rebuilding
03:34Gaza.
03:34But, you know, when you hear the president, the little he has to say about Gaza itself, because all we've
03:40heard is that, in his view, you know, the only obstacle is Hamas.
03:43He sees, you know, the countries from the Middle East who are part to this board, as he said it,
03:49the handlers of Hamas.
03:51But we don't see any clear strategy apart from a lot of, I'd say, wishful thinking.
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