A voice off-stage boomed “Please welcome the chairman of the Board of Peace!” and Donald Trump entered the same hall in Davos where he addressed the world’s elite just a day earlier. But it was a rather different collection of characters who showed up.

Among those summoned were the iconoclastic Javier Milei, the ever-smiling Trump superfan, and a clutch of leaders that in this might-is-right world order can be more comfortably called strongmen. There was Prabowo Subianto, a former military general, and Viktor Orban, who over decades has turned Hungary into an illiberal state and bête noire inside the European Union.

The clapping from the audience was tepid at best. The mood subdued.

Safe to say, Trump felt right at home as he stared down at the attendees, just shy of 20. Among the faces peering up, waiting to be called two by two to sign the charter, were a smattering of diplomatic representatives from Middle East kingdoms and former Soviet satellites, perhaps most gallingly Belarus, whose long-serving president is popularly known as “Europe’s last dictator.”

“Everyone of them is a friend of mine, a couple let’s see, a couple I like, a couple I don’t like,” he said, then taking a closer look. “No, I like actually this group. I like every single one of them, can you believe it!”

As he took center stage, on one side sat the president of Azerbaijan. On the other side, the prime minister of Armenia. Peace between these two nations is just one of the eight wars that Trump claims to have ended.

The list of invitations for this ceremony was long but the more notable list was the excuses made to avoid the event altogether. There were few Europeans present. And one was Orban, who made the pilgrimage to Davos especially and exclusively for the U.S. leader. He despises the World Economic Forum and what it represents and was seen here only once before, in a distant 2000, before his drift to authoritarianism.

“This is a very exciting day, long in the making. Everyone wants to be part of it,” Trump said, seemingly unfazed by the underwhelming size of the gathering. “You’re the biggest, most powerful people in the world.”

In reality, the most influential leaders from the biggest economies either left town or canceled plans to attend the World Economic Forum. Few want to come outright and say they disapprove, because doing so would incur Trump’s wrath. His berating of France’s Emmanuel Macron who publicly snubbed the event would justify those fears.

Many Europeans leaders had hoped to pin Trump down on security guarantees on Ukraine and would have prioritized being in Davos for that reason. But the spat over Greenland torpedoed any chance of that. As one European official put it, there’s concern that this board will be a gallery of rogues. Nations appalled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cannot agree to be part of a board that has Vladimir Putin on it. Citing constitutional constraints and need for parliamentary approval is a neat way to deflect joining.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, a real estate magnate and golf partner to Trump, is on the executive board and along with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, brainstormed the idea of a board on the heels of the Gaza peace plan — which was celebrated at a summit in Egypt that did indeed draw a big crowd.

This appeared a pale imitation of that event. Asked on Wednesday about attendees, Witkoff conceded that “this is not such an easy place to get to,” in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

In the end those who had made it were served up a partial rehash of Trump’s greatest hits on the international stage, with a healthy dose of bragging about his diplomatic successes and the customary takedown of multilateralism.

Given how much heat this board has gotten for seeking to supplant the United Nations, Trump did stress that “we’ll do it in conjunction” with the UN, even though he dismissed the 80-year-old institution as useless at conflict resolution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also came to the stage and there were even slides by Kushner.

And with that, the whole thing was declared a thumping success.

“Congratulations, President Trump,” declared Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. ”The charter is now in full force, and the board of peace is now an official international organization.”

In a few weeks time, the first conference will be held in Washington, Kushner said. And if the State Department’s talking points are accurate, they can all expect to hop on zoom.

Belgium, however, won’t be attending. The country denied it had signed the board charter after the White House included it on a list of countries backing the endeavor.

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—With assistance from Alex Wickham and Donato Paolo Mancini.

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