Trump and "Board of Peace" partners sign founding charter in Davos, as he pledges group will work with U.N.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the board a work in progress, indicating the Trump administration's expectation that membership would increase.

"Many others who are going to join, you know, others either are not in town today or they have to go through some procedure internally in their own countries, in their own country, because of constitutional limitations, but others will join," Rubio said.

Ahead of the signing ceremony on Thursday, the White House shared a list of the participants, which added Egypt and Belgium to the board's signatories.  

The White House said that, in addition to the U.S., the following nations were taking part:

Bahrain, Morocco, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.

None of the U.S. European allies have signed onto the board thus far, with many voicing concern over Mr. Trump's invite to Russia's authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin and his close ally in Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko. Russia hasn't yet committed to joining the board. And while Belarus wasn't listed by the White House as participating in Thursday's event, Lukashenko said earlier that he had accepted membership.

Mr. Trump said the board would be committed to ensuring Gaza's demilitarization — and he renewed his warning to Hamas to lay down its arms — but hinted at wider ambitions for the group going forward.

"I think we can spread out to other things as we succeed with Gaza," Mr. Trump said.

After his remarks, President Trump sat down and was among the first to sign the founding charter of the Board of Peace.

Representatives from Bahrain and Morocco were the first to join Mr. Trump in signing the charter.  

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt then introduced the other members one by one who joined Mr. Trump at a table to add their signatures.

President Trump said the ceasefire his administration helped to broker between Hamas and Israel in Gaza had been maintained, and "delivered record levels of humanitarian aid."

"You don't hear those stories anymore with people starving," Mr. Trump said.

The ceasefire has held, but hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since it took effect in strikes that Israel routinely says are targeted against threats to its forces in the territory.

Three journalists were killed in one of those strikes on Wednesday, including one who had worked extensively for CBS News. Israel's military said it was investigating, but that its forces had struck, "suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed a threat to their safety."

"We're going to be very successful in Gaza," Mr. Trump said. "Once the board is formed we can do pretty much whatever we want to do. And we're going to do it in conjunction with the United Nations."

He lauded the global body but said it had failed to live up to its "tremendous potential."

He said the board would work "coupled with the United Nations," to create a "safer future for the world, unfolding before your eyes," adding that it would help to "end decades of suffering."

Mr. Trump claimed the U.S. strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and surrounding waters had reduced water-borne narcotics shipments into the United States by 98.1%, which he said was a roughly 1% increase on the figures he had been given just the day before.

He repeated his vow to transition the U.S. offensive operations against Latin American drug cartels onto land, without naming any countries that he expected to order strikes on. As he did on Wednesday, he said the land strikes would be easy compared to the attacks on boats at sea.

Mr. Trump offered no new detail about the objectives or operations of the Board of Peace in his initial remarks, moving quickly into a rehash of his economic goals in the U.S. before repeating his misleading claim to have ended eight wars. 

He said his press secretary Karoline Leavitt would later introduce the individual members of the peace board, who joined Mr. Trump on the stage in Davos.

"Places are really calming down," Mr. Trump said, claiming to have saved millions of lives by averting an all-out war between Pakistan and India, among other peace-brokering successes he touted.

Mr. Trump said he was joined on the stage by members of the board who he described as "leaders of countries that are, in many cases, quite popular, but in other cases, not so popular."

President Trump opened his remarks at the signing ceremony by calling it a "very exciting day," and amid concern that he could be trying to build the board into a new global body to take on the role long held by the U.N., he said "we will work with many others, including the United Nations."

President Vladimir Putin said his country was still consulting with Russia's "strategic partners" before making a decision on whether to commit to Mr. Trump's peace board, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Mr. Trump's invitation to Putin and other authoritarian leaders to join the group has left some of America's longtime allies reluctant to commit to the vaguely defined board.

Mr. Trump has said he wants "everybody" powerful to take part. 

"I have some controversial people. But these are people that get the job done. These are people that have tremendous influence," Mr. Trump said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the event Thursday in Davos that Putin, "highly values peacemaking efforts by President Donald Trump and his team," according to the AP.

President Trump's motorcade has arrived at the Davos Congress Centre ahead of his expected participation in the signing ceremony for the Board of Peace. 

Britain has declined to sign onto the peace board for now, U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Thursday, and would not be taking part in the signing ceremony in Davos.

"We won't be one of the signatories today," Cooper told the BBC. "Because this is about a legal treaty that raises much broader issues, and we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace, when we have still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine."

Mr. Trump could offer more details Thursday on his proposed international "Board of Peace" as questions linger over its composition and scope.

The president floated the concept of a Board of Peace last year, as part of a plan brokered by his administration to end the Israel-Hamas war. The board was conceived of as an "international transitional body" that could help oversee a new, technocratic post-Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and fund the Palestinian territory's redevelopment.

"This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment," the peace plan said.

Last week, the White House said the board would play a role in implementing the Gaza peace deal and "providing strategic oversight, mobilizing international resources, and ensuring accountability as Gaza transitions from conflict to peace and development."

The board is set to be led by an executive committee that includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and World Bank Group President Ajay Banga, among others.

The organization is set to be chaired by Mr. Trump. In a press conference last year, the president said he's slated to lead the board "not at my request, believe me. I'm very busy. But we have to make sure this works."

Countries can contribute $1 billion to the Board of Peace to become permanent members instead of having a three-year membership, a U.S. official told CBS News, confirming a Bloomberg report. The official said it isn't a requirement to contribute to become a member. 

The official also told CBS News that any contributions will be used to rebuild Gaza and said "virtually every dollar" raised will be spent on the Board's mandate. There will be no "exorbitant salaries" or "administrative bloat," the official said.

CBS News confirmed that more than 50 countries had been invited to join the Board of Peace as of Wednesday. As many as 20 to 25 countries have agreed to join, Witkoff told CNBC. But so far, only a handful have said so publicly.

Among the countries that have said they're accepting Mr. Trump's invitation: Israel, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kosovo, the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Morocco, Hungary, Qatar, Vietnam, Canada, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Mr. Trump told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted his invite.

Other countries are considering their invitations.

In a joint statement, officials from Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia said they welcomed the invitations to join the body.

Norway and Sweden said Wednesday they're holding off, at least for now, due to concerns about the terms for joining. A source familiar with the matter told CBS News earlier this week that France intended to decline.

"I think we have peace in the Middle East," Mr. Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked about his Board of Peace and the situation in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas.

He said the U.S. would know in the next few weeks whether Hamas would disarm — a key criteria of the 20-point ceasefire plan negotiated by the president's team last year.

"If they don't do it … they'll be blown away. Very quickly," Mr. Trump said.

The president said if the U.S. had not attacked Iran's nuclear facilities in June last year, a deal would not have been signed.

"They were very close to having a nuclear weapon, and we hit them hard, and it was total obliteration. They may try again, but they have to try from a different area, because that area was obliterated," Mr. Trump said of Iran.

"If we didn't do that, there was no chance of making peace" between Israel and Hamas, he said, arguing that countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar would not have backed an agreement. "They were afraid. We had a bully. The bully was Iran."

Mr. Trump said Tuesday the Board of Peace "might" replace the United Nations, an organization the president has regularly criticized for years.

"I mean, the U.N. just hasn't been very helpful. I'm a big fan of the U.N. potential. But it has never lived up to its potential," he said in a more than 90-minute press conference. 

But he added, "I believe you've got to let the U.N. continue because the potential is so great."

The following day, CNBC's Sara Eisen noted to Witkoff that "some people say it's a U.N. alternative." Responded Witkoff: "No, no, it's just, it's a great group of leaders coming together with great opinion and sharing opinion to achieve peace, and that's what we need."

Mr. Trump said Wednesday he will not be imposing tariffs on European countries over their objections to his efforts to acquire Greenland, revealing that he and the secretary-general of NATO reached a "framework of a future deal" regarding the island.

The president's renewed push to take over Greenland for security reasons has rattled U.S. allies. Denmark, a NATO member that oversees Greenland, has ruled out the idea and warned that a U.S. takeover by force would effectively spell the end of the NATO alliance. Last week, Mr. Trump threatened tariffs against countries that decline to "go along with" the plan.

But in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, the president said "we have a concept of a deal" for Greenland and that he thinks it will be "a very good deal for the United States, also for them." 

He declined to provide specifics of the framework, saying "it's a little bit complex" and that the U.S. will "explain it down the line." He did note that the agreement would last "forever."

Denmark's foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, later said the day "is ending on a better note than it began," and called for negotiations to address Mr. Trump's "security concerns."

Two diplomatic sources later told CBS News that there is no agreement for U.S. control or ownership of Greenland. American ownership of the territory is still a red line for Greenland and Denmark, the sources said.

The framework of the deal, according to the sources, would consist of ramping up security for Greenland beyond an existing 1951 agreement, allowing the U.S. to establish multiple military bases on the island. The U.S. currently only has one base in operation, Pituffik Space Base.

It would also increase NATO's role with the specific intent of blocking Russia and China from gaining a foothold on the island, the sources said.

But such a deal would still need to be directly negotiated with Denmark and Greenland.

Mr. Trump addressed the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, dedicating parts of his speech to criticizing several NATO allies and questioning whether the alliance benefits the U.S.

"The United States is treated very unfairly by NATO," Mr. Trump said of the seven-decade-old alliance. "We give so much, and we get so little in return."

The president also said at one point: "The problem with NATO is that we'll be there for them, 100%, but I'm not sure they'll be there for us." The clause in NATO's charter that requires member countries to defend each other has been invoked only once, when the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, and NATO allies did rally around the U.S. and fought in the war on terror.

Mr. Trump specifically criticized Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whom he accused of ingratitude despite getting "a lot of freebies from us," and the United Kingdom, which he said should take greater advantage of oil underneath the North Sea.

The president also defended his strategy of levying tariffs on foreign imports, and said many Western governments had turned their back on "everything that makes nations rich and powerful and strong." He argued Europe is "not heading in the right direction."

Mr. Trump reiterated that he wants the U.S. to take control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, though he ruled out using force to take over the island.

"You need the ownership to defend it," the president said of Greenland. "You can't defend it on a lease. Number one, legally it's not defensible in that way, totally. And psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease?"

Hours later, the president announced a possible deal over Greenland — though there's no indication that it will involve the U.S. taking control of the entire territory.