MIAMI - President Lula da Silva of Brazil says he spoke to the White House on Monday in an hour-long phone call, where he pushed for the U.S. president to confine the scope of Trump’s newly formed global initiative, The Board of Peace, to affairs in Gaza.
Lula also warned last week during a speech in Rio Grande do Sul that the U.S. president is aiming to “create a new U.N.” and that Trump “wants to run the world through Twitter” as part of a most recent dispute over how the international community should be best governed.
Lula, who has previously echoed the aspirations of other global leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia, China’s Xi, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, expressed an interest in paving the way for a “new world order” and praising the virtues of multipolarity by joining alternative global organizations like BRICS.
The Board of Peace
Trump’s Board of Peace, which was recently announced to be chaired by the U.S. president and to be led by a Board of Executive Directors, a list that includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and security advisor Robert Gabriel.
The Board of Peace has attracted a short list of signatories until now, among some of the nations that have joined are Argentina, Pakistan, Morocco, Hungary, Turkey, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, and others.
The new organization has also garnered controversy in recent days after President Trump confirmed an invitation to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to join the new Board of Peace. Putin, an outcast of the international community, has overseen a Russian incursion into Ukraine, now heading into its fourth year.
Critics of Israel’s offensive in Gaza have also criticized the U.S. president’s wish to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to join the Board of Peace. Several world leaders have called Netanyahu a “war criminal”, calling on the United Nations to prosecute the Israeli president for “war crimes.”
Netanyahu has rejected a request by the White House to allow President Isaac Herzog to attend the launch ceremony of President Trump's Gaza Board of Peace on Thursday in Davos, according to two sources familiar with the matter, per a report by Axios.
New Frictions
Relations between President Trump and President Lula of Brazil, the leaders of the two largest economies in the Western Hemisphere, appeared to have been reconciled since a months-long dispute over the imposition of tariffs, free speech censorship, and allegations of political persecution towards the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence in Brasília.
The Brazilian president also has his plate full with a slate of issues that could potentially reinvigorate tensions with the administration in Washington. Lula was one of the staunchest opponents to U.S. involvement in the internal affairs of Venezuela, and rejected any assault that violated the “territorial sovereignty” of the South American nations.
During the early weeks of rising tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela in 2025, reports suggested that the government in Brasília was considering a special operation to lift the now-deposed leader of the regime in Caracas, Nicolás Maduro, and provide the former Venezuelan president refuge amid the threat of a potential U.S. invasion during the early months of the U.S. military deployment in the South Caribbean waters.
Sociedad Media also reported this month on the risk of the imposition of economic sanctions due to Brazil’s large trade surplus with the Iranian government, after the U.S. warned of potential military action against the Iranian regime in response to the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters.
