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What you need to know

The Board of Peace meeting in Washington, and what was announced

At the inaugural Board of Peace meeting in Washington, D.C., yesterday 19 February, President Donald Trump chaired proceedings as the body’s lead convener.

Attendance was divided into three broad categories.

First were participating governments represented by heads of state or government, or by senior officials acting on their behalf: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Second were observers, who attended in a non-member capacity: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Poland, South Korea, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

Third were U.S. officials and other invitees. Vice President J.D. Vance attended alongside Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke for the U.S. diplomatic team. Other U.S. figures present included Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.

Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, attended as a prominent nongovernmental guest.

Belarus’s foreign minister was invited but did not attend, reportedly due to visa issues.

Trump also announced pledged contributions for the initiative: $10 billion from the U.S.; $7 billion from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia; $2 billion to be raised via the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); and $75 million from FIFA.

Trump said Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo, and Kazakhstan would contribute troops to an International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza, while Egypt and Jordan would support police training.

Major General Jasper Jeffers, the ISF’s commander for Gaza, said five countries had pledged troops: Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania. Indonesia was also named as the ISF’s deputy commander.

Ali Shaath, described as the head of the new Gaza administration, said 5,000 Palestinian police officers would be deployed in Gaza within the next 60 days.

Birthplace of civilization

Europe moves against Iran’s guards

It is now official: the European Union has designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. On 19 February Denmark seized an Iran-flagged container vessel, the NORA, while it was anchored in Danish territorial waters.

Shipping records indicate that the NORA previously sailed under the flag of the Comoros before switching its registration to Iran. Its IMO number matches that of the CERUS, a vessel sanctioned by the U.S.

U.S. forces tighten the circle around Iran

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is expected to arrive off Israel’s coast near the port of Haifa between Saturday and Sunday. The U.S. may then be close to being operationally ready to begin strikes on Iran.

There has been no clear sign of movement on diplomacy, beyond claims from Iranian and Omani officials about a two-week timetable, plus a vague comment on Thursday from President Donald Trump that Iran may have “around” ten days at most before some form of military action.

The British government is blocking Mr Trump from using its bases, both in Britain and on Diego Garcia, for strikes on Iran, according to a report in The Times. Mr Trump has also reiterated his opposition to the British government’s proposed transfer of the Chagos Islands, which include Diego Garcia, to Mauritius. A transfer of the islands to Mauritius would appear to cut across the treaty framework governing use of the base. Media reports also say the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has issued a formal warning to Mauritius that the U.S. might attempt to use the islands to launch strikes on Iran, which it had no obligation to do and seems a strange way to treat an ally. London-Washington relations appear to be heading into negative territory.

Even so, the American buildup continues. U.S. forces have turned Sofia International Airport in Bulgaria into a major staging ground for aerial-refueling tankers intended to support potential strikes on Iran. Amateur plane-watchers reported seeing roughly half a dozen KC-135s parked on the runways there on Thursday.

Iran’s currency has also fallen to a record low on the open market. One dollar now buys about 164,900 tomans. When Mr Trump entered office, one dollar bought roughly 81,000 tomans, implying that the currency’s value has more than halved over that period.

America first

A small U.S. payment eases the U.N.’s cash squeeze

The Trump administration has made a $160m partial payment to the United Nations, offering short-term relief to an organization that has warned of acute cash pressure, while leaving most U.S. arrears untouched.

A U.N. spokesperson said the money was applied to the regular budget, the core operating account that funds the Secretariat and a wide range of U.N. activities. The payment, made last week, comes against a much larger bill. The U.N. says the U.S. now owes roughly $2.196bn to the regular budget, including $767m assessed for 2026.

Those figures are only part of a wider arrears picture. Recent tallies cited by U.N. officials put total U.S. unpaid amounts above $4bn once peacekeeping and U.N. tribunals are included. That gap helps explain why a partial transfer, while politically meaningful, does little to fix the underlying liquidity problem.

U.N. officials argue that timing matters as much as totals. Because the U.S. is the largest single contributor to the regular budget, delays in U.S. payments account for most overdue assessments. About 95% of overdue payments to the regular budget are owed by the U.S., according to media reports, a concentration that forces the U.N. to manage cash tightly to meet payroll and keep operations running.

President Donald Trump has paired the payment with renewed calls for U.N. reform and the launch of a U.S.-backed “Board of Peace” initiative, which he has described as a way to make the world body “stronger” and “more viable”.

The new Monroe Doctrine & the Trump Corollary 

Argentina loosens its labor rules

President Javier Milei’s government pushed a sweeping labor-reform package through the Chamber of Deputies on 20 February, bringing his market-friendly overhaul closer to the finish line. The lower house approved the bill 135–115 after a bruising debate and a day of nationwide union action, then sent the amended text back to the Senate for a final vote.

The reform aims to shrink the cost and risk of formal hiring in an economy where informality is endemic and litigation over dismissals is common. At its core are reductions in employer payroll charges, a recalibration of severance calculations intended to make termination liabilities more predictable, and wider scope for flexible working-time arrangements. The government argues that lowering the “tax wedge” on wages will encourage firms to bring workers onto the books and expand payrolls. Unions counter that the measures shift bargaining power toward employers and weaken protections built up over decades.

The package also broadens the menu of workplace options. Employers and employees would gain more latitude to organize hours, including mechanisms that allow overtime to be compensated with time off, while vacation scheduling becomes more negotiable within statutory minimums. Some of the sharpest edges were blunted in the latest round of amendments, however, including changes related to sickness benefits, a concession that helped secure votes but also forced the bill back to the Senate.

If the upper chamber endorses the revised text, Milei will claim a politically costly win: a reform that tests his ability to govern through Congress while confronting Argentina’s most durable organized opposition, the unions.

Move fast and break things

Trump orders review of U.S. files on “alien and extraterrestrial life”

After accusing former President Barack Obama of releasing classified information about aliens, President Donald Trump has directed the Secretary of War and other government agencies to disclose government files related to “alien and extraterrestrial life.”

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