When Donald Trump unveiled his so-called ‘Board of Peace’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the symbolism was unmistakable: an elaborate signing ceremony, permanent seats priced at a billion dollars each, and a self-appointed chairman-for-life declaring that “the world is a region.” For Yanis Varoufakis, this was not just another Trumpian spectacle. It was a historic rupture, and a profoundly dangerous one.

Speaking to Democracy Now!, Varoufakis warned that the Board of Peace is not a flawed attempt at reforming global governance, but a deliberate effort to replace the post-World War II international order with something far darker: a privatised, corporate model of power reminiscent of early colonialism.

Varoufakis began by situating Trump’s constant provocations – from Gaza to Greenland – within a deliberate political strategy designed to overwhelm public attention.

“What we see is the geopolitical version of Steve Bannon’s infamous policy of flooding the zone,” he said. “He abducts Maduro from Venezuela. Before we have a chance to think about it, he talks about Greenland. Then he threatens military action. Then he takes it all back. Then he abandons the Board of Peace. Then he brings it back and proposes it as a substitute for the United Nations.”

This chaos is not random or impulsive according to Varoufakis: “It’s very easy to dismiss this as a toddler on LSD,” he noted, “but behind this tactic is a strategy of making the rest of the world sink into a black hole of uncertainty, while he’s getting on with the business of enriching himself, the tech lords around him, and solidifying his power.”

When asked why he had previously described the Board of Peace as “one of the most despicable developments” of his lifetime, Varoufakis did not mince words.

“When I first heard about the board of Gaza, it made me think this is something Philip K. Dick would invent – part of science fiction – if he was on really bad drugs,” he said. “The monstrous idea is that a private company, headed by him for life, will annex occupied land.”

Crucially, Varoufakis stressed that the plan was never only about Gaza, even if European leaders initially convinced themselves otherwise.

“The Europeans went along with it because they thought it was only about Gaza,” he said. “They were wrong. It was much bigger than that. It was about replacing the international order that came out of 1945 – the carnage of the Second World War, the Holocaust, and so on.”

Trump’s own critique of the United Nations, Varoufakis argued, is deeply cynical. “The United Nations has proven weak,” he acknowledged. “But there’s a reason for that: people like him keep vetoing any serious peace proposal at the Security Council.”

What Trump is offering instead, Varoufakis warned, is not multilateralism but corporate rule. “This is a new ideology,” he said. “Corporations resembling the Dutch East India Company or the British East India Company. That nightmare is now coming back – with a flimsy charter not worth the paper it’s written on, but with very clear intentions.”

The billion-dollar membership fee for the Board of Peace, far from being unprecedented, is central to its historical meaning. “It’s not unprecedented at all,” Varoufakis explained. “That’s exactly how the East India Company was created. Businessmen chipped in vast sums to create a company that became the first colonizer – with its own army, its own territories.

“So we are going back many centuries. Trump, with the complicity of the Europeans, is trying to maintain American hegemony – not of the American people, but of a tiny ruling class – over the world.”

European leaders who now express alarm, Varoufakis argued, have little moral ground to stand on.

“Trump has all his work done for him by placid European centrists,” he said. “They went along with trashing international law — especially in Palestine — and created the circumstances for him to say, ‘Right, I’m taking over the world.’”

Their sudden resistance, he suggested, comes only because the consequences are now reaching Europe itself.

“They thought this was only for brown people in the developing world,” he said. “Now they’re realizing it’s about them as well.”

Nowhere is the logic of the Board of Peace clearer than in Gaza. Referring to Jared Kushner’s glossy redevelopment plans, Varoufakis was unequivocal.

“This is the completion of the genocide,” he said. “Gaza is treated as a piece of real estate. Palestinians don’t exist — except as servants.”

He drew a stark historical parallel. “It’s exactly like South African apartheid,” he said, “where people were tolerated only if they didn’t assert their right to exist as human beings.”

Trump’s Board of Peace marks the burial – not the reform – of the international system born after 1945, according to Yanis. Whether democracy survives this rupture, he warned, depends less on Trump himself than on whether societies choose to resist the return of corporate colonial rule masquerading as peace.

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