President Donald Trump closed out 2025 with his plan to end the Israel-Hamas war in fine fettle. With an endorsement from the U.N. Security Council to form a “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza’s future, Trump entered 2026 riding high in his self-described role as a “president of peace” who sought to end conflicts and certainly not create new ones. He has since ordered a military operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and threatened to use force to annex Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark. With that, the next steps in his Gaza ceasefire plan and attempt to expand the mandate of the Board of Peace to other global crises appear to be at risk.
