| Image by Elaine J.E. Degale
In the aftermath of not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, which instead went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, Donald Trump has entered a bold new chapter in his lifelong quest for global validation. It is the era of Trump proving to the world that no one, and certainly not President Barack Obama, is more deserving of an international award for peace than he is.
How does one demonstrate a deep commitment to peace in 2026? Simple. You start the year with pressure campaigns against oil-rich nations, follow it up with thinly veiled attempts to influence regime outcomes, which involve kidnapping a sitting president, and then you move on to asserting yourself as the unofficial acting president of Venezuela. According to Trump’s logic, withholding Machado’s political opportunities at home while securing U.S.-friendly oil arrangements somehow counts as diplomacy. Peace, but make it transactional.
Once the Venezuelan oil question was sorted out in America’s favor, the administration shifted its gaze northward to Greenland. Trump reportedly floated the idea of offering Greenlanders up to $100,000 per person to abandon Danish governance. It would, of course, mean giving up free university education, universal healthcare, and a social welfare system that treats citizens as people rather than liabilities. Who would say no to $100,000? People who already have their basic needs met, apparently.
Enter Davos, Switzerland, where the world’s political and financial elite gathered once again to shape agendas on trade, climate, technology, geopolitics, and global growth. The World Economic Forum does not make binding decisions like the United Nations or the G20, but it excels at influencing narratives and laundering power through panel discussions and artisanal coffee.
It was here that Trump unveiled what may be his most impressive peace achievement yet: the creation of the Board of Peace. It came at a convenient time, just one week after María Corina Machado publicly handed over her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump in exchange for political leverage (or her soul). The Board of Peace is reportedly part of Trump’s 20-point peace plan and will oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, a territory devastated by Israel’s war on Palestinians since October 2023. More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Yet, the solution on offer appears to be real estate redevelopment managed by the same people who destabilized the region in the first place.
I guess that makes sense if you elect a real estate mogul to the highest office of the country.
What a remarkable time to be alive, when a sitting U.S. president aggressively campaigns for recognition as a global peacemaker while migrant families are detained, deported, or separated by his own immigration enforcement agencies. Children remain in detention centers. Protesters lose eyes to police projectiles. Activists are surveilled and criminalized. Do-gooders are shot and killed.
” … [T]he West’s moral framework is built on selective outrage and performative values, never truly designed to deliver justice for immigrants, Black communities, brown communities, or people outside the imperial core. The so-called American Dream fractures when held up against the realities of the War on Terror and Gaza..”
The Board of Peace reportedly includes figures with extensive experience in energy extraction, defense contracting, and Middle East policy, many of whom previously supported sanctions regimes, military interventions, or privatization efforts that helped destabilize the very regions now slated for “reconstruction.” Peace, it turns out, is best overseen by people fluent in leverage, not healing.
The timing is exquisite. As Davos attendees debate peace and reconstruction, Oxfam reports that billionaire wealth surged three times faster in 2024 than the year before, propelled by AI, tech speculation, and monopolistic power. The organization projects the world’s first trillionaires within a decade, at least five of them, while poverty eradication remains centuries away.
Writer Omar El Akkad captures this moment perfectly in One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. He argues that the West’s moral framework is built on selective outrage and performative values, never truly designed to deliver justice for immigrants, Black communities, brown communities, or people outside the imperial core. The so-called American Dream fractures when held up against the realities of the War on Terror and Gaza.
Davos reinforces this fracture. Decisions made there consistently prioritize capital over humanity, stability over justice, and profit over life. The result is a global crisis of conscience. People like Kaden Rummler lose an eye for protesting injustice. Rene Good loses her life. Countless others are brutalized, detained, or erased for demanding accountability and an end to imperial violence.
But add another billion dollars to the mix, throw a champagne-soaked networking party, and label the chaos “peace”. At least there is good news. With the world being bled dry for oil, America will probably never run out of it.
