Trump's Board of Peace fund sits empty 4 months after launch - report
Billions were pledged by member states, but the World Bank account has taken in nothing, with money instead routed through a less-transparent private account, the Financial Times reports
The fund meant to bankroll US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace has yet to receive a single donation, leaving the body tangled in legal and political uncertainty that has stalled efforts to rebuild Gaza, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Trump has touted the board as among the most significant international institutions ever founded, asking world leaders to pay $1 billion each for lifetime membership, while member states committed $7 billion toward a Gaza relief package, and the president separately pledged $10 billion in American money.
Four months on, however, the World Bank account created to hold those funds remains empty, four sources told the newspaper. "Zero dollars have been deposited," one of them said.
Instead of using that account, which carries UN backing, donors have been routing contributions into a JPMorgan account held by the board, according to the report. That account, unlike the World Bank mechanism, faces no independent transparency obligations. A board official said several funding channels had been set up, that donors had chosen alternatives to the World Bank route, and that the board would disclose its finances to its own executive leadership when it saw fit.
Smaller sums have nonetheless reached the board's operations: roughly $3 million from Morocco and $20 million from the UAE have gone toward running the office of postwar Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov and paying the Palestinian technocratic committee set up to administer the territory. Abu Dhabi also committed $100 million to stand up a new Gaza police force, but that money is frozen and the training has not begun, two sources said.
Washington's own contribution is similarly stalled. The State Department plans to redirect around $1.2 billion in aid toward the board's goals, though that money would bypass the board and has not been disbursed, while a senior congressional aide said the department has signaled no intention of placing it under the board's control. A further $50 million the department hopes to give the board directly is also on hold until the body puts proper financial safeguards in place.
The board has begun inviting bids for reconstruction and security work but has signed no contracts, with its spokesperson attributing the delay largely to the fact that operations cannot begin while Hamas remains armed. A joint EU, UN, and World Bank assessment has put Gaza's reconstruction needs at more than $70 billion over the coming decade.