Gather Vassals While Ye May
The YMCA dance President Donald Trump performs at his rallies brings to mind the jig our older family members perform on occasion, usually in the kitchen after they’ve had a few drinks and are feeling good. But now, sadly, in swapping out his shabby domestic venue for a global one, Trump has abandoned his homey shuffle for something quite different, elegant, regal. He’s got a new role awaiting him, CEO of the world, and he’s ready to waltz right into it.
It’s official. On January 22, 2026, in a grand ceremony at Davos, Switzerland, Trump formally ratified his Charter of the Board of Peace. To confirm establishment of Trump’s nonesuch brainchild, United Nations Security Council officially recognized the unlikely body in its Resolution 2803 back in November 2025, tasking it with overseeing the Gaza peace process and naming President Trump as chairman.
After which, Trump changed his mind.
In shifting BoP’s scope and mandate, Trump tricked the UN into authorizing a tragedy. Having gained for his BoP the delicate, grave, politically explosive responsibility of ushering peace into Gaza, Trump decided BoP need not concern itself with the affair. After all, Trump himself had declared a ceasefire in that skinny strip of seaside real estate some time ago and assigned his competent son-in-law to oversee rubble removal1 and condo allotments, making any further involvement of BoP superfluous. Having so neatly and swiftly disposed of the matter of peace in Gaza, Trump poised BoP to move heavily on the rest of the world.2
Countries smart enough to become permanent members must not think for a moment that the honor of permanent membership will be covered by a one-time fee.
Just one man has the vision, the focus, the charisma to fulfill the role of BoP chairman, and that man is Donald Trump. Aware of being the single person who can do the job, Trump agreed to serve forever.3 As chairman, he will decide which countries receive invitations to become BoP members, collect the $1 billion fees permanent members must pay, encourage quite forcefully all other members to become permanent members as well, and apply the same skill and care to managing the BoP money as he demonstrated overseeing Trump Organization finances for so many years.4
Nations lucky enough to receive BoP invitations and smart enough to become permanent members must not think for a moment that the honor — and privilege — of permanent membership will be covered by a one-time fee. Remember who’s in charge. Consider how Mar-a-Lago fees skyrocketed as Trump’s clout thickened.5 Trump noted well as he increased fees that not a brow furrowed. New members only thanked him all the more heartily for allowing them to sit in chambers neighboring those enshrining Trump’s occasional presence. With others clamoring to join at any price, the club’s membership cap of 500 will soon be reached, shutting down the aspirations of would-be Mar-a-Lagios until someone dies or annoys Trump.
BoP membership fees will be likewise volatile.
Except fees aren’t what Trump is after. He wants a cut of the industries, services, assets, and GDP of each member state as well as control of its economic, diplomatic, and trading policies. Just consider what he was after in his own country these past 12 months: billion-dollar equity shares in major U.S. companies;6 millions of dollars of free public service announcements from Skydance in exchange for presidential permission for a huge merger looming; threats to withhold federal funding from public broadcasting and universities unless they bend policy and program to suit him; millions of dollars of pro bono service from preeminent U.S. law firms in exchange for allowing their personnel to enter federal buildings to meet clients, with Trump’s quirky process of acquisition by no means concluded.
That’s just the domestic ruckus. If you cast your mind all the way back to April 2, 2025, you will recall how he thrust his rude hand into the intimate parts of every county he could think of — and at least one nonexistent sovereignty7 — with his imposition of worldwide tariffs. And how did he achieve all this? The same way he moved on E. Jean Carroll in that dressing room. In his own words: “Very heavily.”8
We all know what Trump’s after, and the monotonous spectacle of his grimy ploys to get more of it has nauseated the nation.
When enamored of a forbidden object, perhaps the shiny clip holding back its keeper’s hair, a monkey is capable of employing ingenious cunning and astounding agility driven by relentless focus and simian strength to get its sinewy fingers on that clip. Its ruses and wiles provide hilarious entertainment — for all but the keeper — once observers are apprised of what the monkey is after.
Trump’s ceaseless fiddling with the snags and loopholes of global businesses and nations is not entertaining. We all know what he’s after, and the monotonous spectacle of his grimy ploys to get more of it has nauseated the nation. Yet we stand by — disgusted and offended though we may be — as if paralyzed, which gives Trump exactly what he needs: room to maneuver.
So what do we do now that he’s introduced his newest con, the Board of Peace?
The timing was not incidental. Trump must gain BoP traction while still president of the United States. As president, he can leverage U.S. political and economic might — as he did with tariffs — to pressure nations to sign up, then extort them as BoP members to deliver their economies up to him as vassal states. With control of numerous national revenues and, hence, their policies, Trump can shed the presidency, politics, and the bothersome matter of elections without a second thought.
Nor must Trump worry about legitimacy in deploying his BoP policy. The British Empire once stretched its hideous hide across vast India through the cruel pretense of its British East India Company and good-to-have 200,000 soldiers. The enterprise infested, tormented, ravished the sapping subcontinent to fuel Britain’s wealth for a century before India shook it off in 1857.
Of course, Trump knows nothing about England’s grand era of world dominion, but the rest of us do. We thought we were braced to fend off any other such charade, but no one was on the lookout for a monkey.
- And the stray human femur they run across in the process. ↩︎
- The way Trump describes his moves on all sorts of weak, but comely creatures. ↩︎
- Although Trump’s position as BoP chairman is permanent, should he tire of it, he alone is authorized to determine who succeeds him. ↩︎
- People v. Trump Corporation is a state criminal case in New York. In July 2021, an indictment was issued against the Trump Corporation, the Trump Payroll Corporation, and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg. Charges were scheme to defraud, conspiracy, tax fraud, and falsifying business records. Weisselberg was additionally charged with grand larceny and offering a false instrument for filing. In August 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 felonies and agreed to testify against the organization in a plea deal. On December 6, the organization was convicted of all 17 criminal charges, and fined the maximum allowable $1.6 million. — Wikipedia
Donald Trump, of course, had nothing to do with any of this. ↩︎ - In the 1990s, Mar-a-Lago’s initiation fee was $25K. It climbed to $100K during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then jumped to $200,000 after his election. The fee increased rapidly thereafter, first to $700K before rocketing to $1 million in 2024. Annual dues remain stable at about $20K. ↩︎
- To name just five of Trump’s conquests: semiconductor giant Intel Corp. — 10% equity stake; rare earth producer MP Materials — 15% equity stake; Lithium Americas Corp. — 10% equity stake; Trilogy Metals Inc. — 10% equity stake; and US Steel Corporation — a “golden share.” https://www.benzinga.com/markets/equities/25/10/48061018/trump-administration-now-holds-stakes-in-5-public-companies-heres-a-list-intc-mp-lac-and-more ↩︎
- Trump set his avaricious sights on a group of barren volcanic island inhabited by penguins, demanding Heard Island and McDonald Islands, “external territories” of Australia, undergo 10% tariff on all their goods OR ELSE. The penguins took it in stride. ↩︎
- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html ↩︎