US President Donald Trump looks on during speeches at the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on February 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. CHIP SOMODEVILLA / AFP
US President Donald Trump on Thursday, February 19 promised $10 billion and Muslim-majority nations offered funding and troops for Gaza as he inaugurated his Board of Peace, a new institution whose ultimate mission has drawn questions.
Trump brought together allies from around the world – many authoritarians, with few Western democrats who traditionally ally with the United States – to hail his peacemaking just as he sends US military might near Iran and threatens war.
Presiding with a gavel over the meeting in the gleaming Washington building of the former US Institute of Peace, which has been gutted and renamed after the 79-year-old Republican, Trump hailed the "powerful people" who joined his board.
"We will help Gaza. We will straighten it out. We'll make it successful," Trump said, holding up a document with pledges before the disco beats of his adopted theme-song "YMCA" came on the speakers. "We will make it peaceful, and we will do things like that in other spots. Spots will come up, things will happen," Trump said.
