MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump has promised $10 billion from the United States to rebuild Gaza. And he says other countries are pitching in an additional 7 billion that will be managed by what he calls his Board of Peace. Trump held its first board meeting here in Washington today, just across the street from the State Department, at a building the administration calls the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The stage was set like a television pledge drive. President Trump, at center stage, introduced many of the world leaders there, endorsing Hungary's Viktor Orban who faces a tough reelection campaign, and Argentina's President Javier Milei. Even the head of FIFA, the world soccer federation, was there to announce soccer fields for Gaza.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is the most prestigious board ever put together. You know, I've seen some great corporate boards. I've seen some great boards, period. It's peanuts compared to this board.
KELEMEN: The nearly 50-minute speech was meandering at times.
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TRUMP: I don't like young, handsome men. Women - it's - I like.
KELEMEN: Trump said it was Secretary of State Marco Rubio who took over the venue, the U.S. Institute of Peace building, and put Trump's name on it.
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TRUMP: Marco named it after me. I had nothing to do with it. I swear I didn't.
KELEMEN: Once he got down to the focus of the day - Gaza - the president announced that the U.S. is giving $10 billion to the Board of Peace, though members of Congress question the legality of that. He also says he's raised 7 billion from nine other countries that joined his board, mostly in the Middle East and Central Asia. The Palestinian who's been tapped to lead a committee to administer Gaza, Ali Shaath, brought the conversation down to the reality on the ground.
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ALI SHAATH: Large parts of Gaza Strip are severely damaged, destroyed, actually. The humanitarian needs are acute.
KELEMEN: And there's no law and order. The Bulgarian diplomat and former U.N. Middle East envoy who's overseeing this, Nickolay Mladenov, says he's already starting to recruit Palestinian police officers for Gaza.
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NICKOLAY MLADENOV: And just in the first few hours, we have 2,000 people who have applied to join a new transitional Palestinian police force to be formed in Gaza under the authority of the national committee, with the support of the Board of Peace, trained in Egypt.
KELEMEN: Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo and Kazakhstan are all planning to send troops and police to set up an international stabilization force, but it's not clear when they'll get there or what they can do while Hamas remains in control of part of Gaza, and the disarmament of the group is likely to be a long, drawn-out process. Still, there was a lot of talk about the valuable coastline in Gaza and the potential to build islands to develop as well. Trump's son -in-law Jared Kushner, who the president is now calling his envoy of peace, says he wanted this event to look like a corporate board meeting.
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JARED KUSHNER: We cannot change the past, but I think that what you're seeing today is that we can potentially change the future if we focus and do this in the right way.
KELEMEN: Amid all this talk of peace, the Middle East is preparing for a possible new war with Iran. President Trump says the Gaza ceasefire wouldn't have happened without the U.S. and Israel bombing Iran's nuclear sites last year.
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TRUMP: So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not. Maybe we're going to make a deal. You're going to be finding out over the next, probably, 10 days.
KELEMEN: Kushner and Trump's other Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, have been involved in those talks with Iran, as well as the administration's efforts to end Russia's war against Ukraine. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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