The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, accused Donald Trump on Friday of trying to create “a new UN” with his proposed “Board of Peace.”
Lula joins other world leaders who have avoided signing up for Trump’s new global conflict resolution organization, where a permanent seat costs $1 billion and the chairman is Trump himself.
“Instead of fixing” the United Nations, “what’s happening? President Trump is proposing to create a new UN where only he is the owner,” Lula said.
Trump launched his “Board of Peace” at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski town of Davos on Thursday, and presidents and officials from 19 countries signed its founding charter onstage.
Lula backed multilateralism against what he referred to as “the law of the jungle” in international relations.
His comments came a day after he spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who urged his colleague to maintain the United Nations’ “central role” in international affairs.
In his statements on Friday, Lula stated that “the UN charter is being torn.”
Although the board’s charter was originally intended to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction, it does not appear to confine its responsibility to the Palestinian territory and appears to seek to compete with the United Nations.
Key US allies, like France and Britain, have also expressed reservations.
London objected to the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces have been battling in Ukraine since entering in 2022.
France stated that the charter as it currently stood was “incompatible” with its international commitments, especially its UN membership.
