Even without having been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, US President Donald Trump was impressively upbeat in his whirlwind trip to Israel and Egypt on 13 October 2025. He spoke extensively at the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, mostly extolling Israel for its achievements and declaring it the victor of the war in Gaza. He bestowed generous praise on the leadership of Israel, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to him amicably and somewhat condescendingly as “Bibi” and trying to absolve him of any trouble with the law at home and abroad. President Trump recognized his own team of Middle East negotiators, including his very own son-in-law, and belittled his Democratic Party predecessors in the US, Joe Biden and Barrack Obama.
While relishing his apotheosis by the Israeli leadership and MPs (with only one disrespectful interruption), orally and by repeated applause, Mr. Trump felt comfortable enough to refer to the need for the Palestinians to also enjoy a good life from now on, ending decades of violence and thousands of years of conflict with the Israelis. He refrained from mentioning a Palestinian state, though, or the two-state solution.
Whether he was in his own White House Oval Office, at the Knesset, or at the peace summit with Arab, Muslim and European leaders later in the day at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, President Trump apparently felt at home, everywhere. He was the guest of honour, the highest ranking of them all, and could enjoy it by being informal, teasing his counterparts, pronouncing on matters from the mundane to the biblical, and selling his Middle East Peace Plan as the salvation from World War III.
Why shouldn’t he do all this, when the other 20-plus leaders flocked around the “Daddy” (as per the term the NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte used at some point for Mr. Trump), eager to reflect his aura, positioning themselves to be his best friends, avoiding his tariffs and getting ready to get their modest part of the spoils, be they contracts for Gaza’s reconstruction and/or the latest weapon systems that the President also unashamedly promoted.
The signing of the “Sharm el-Sheikh Declaration”, with neither Israel not Hamas present, was the climax of the summit, with The President surrounded by his partners in mediation, the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. What a show, to mark a potentially very important moment in the history of the Middle East and the world.
At about the same time, in the killing fields of Gaza and its surroundings, the surviving twenty Israel hostages were on their way back to Israel and their loved ones, while almost two thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons were sent back to their destroyed homes or released in exile. The President may have gotten a glimpse of all that from above, as he flew to Jerusalem, then to Sharm el-Sheikh and back to the US. At the end, he must have had a good sleep on his Being 747, another US product that he valiantly promoted, along with the US stealth bombers that destroyed Iran’s nuclear weapons-under-construction.
As a UN aficionado, I wish the peace-related achievement part of the previous paragraphs, and the taunting of leaders, plus the negotiating skills and perseverance, referred to the UN Secretary-General (UNSG). The “Secular Pope”, as this global office has been described in the past, should have the authority to bring together world leaders, lean on them till they get back to their senses, ensure the end of hostilities and monitor moves towards peaceful co-existence in the world’s trouble spots. Maybe Mr. Trump would like to play that role, replacing the hapless current UNSG, Mr. Antonio Guterres, when the latter’s term expires at the end of 2026.
If Mr. Trump were interested in the UNSG position, the UN Security Council and the General Assembly that are responsible for the selection and appointment respectively of the new UNSG might even ignore, once again, the protracted calls for a woman to be appointed, and waive the unwritten rule that the UNSG cannot be a national of one of the five, veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5). Hopefully, once in such a position, Mr. Trump would refrain from promoting US products and criticizing the persons and policies of his US Democratic Party rivals. He should keep the stealth bombers, though, in close proximity and ready to support his role, otherwise the world’s leaders might not be as compliant on the basis of his charm alone.
Alternatively, there is no need for President Trump to become UNSG, if he assumes supreme leader powers in the US and the world. If the Middle East deal holds and moves successfully to the next phase of Gaza governance and reconstruction, even Palestinian sovereignty at last, and if Mr. Trump now turns successfully his full attention to the Russia-Ukraine war, then there will be no stopping him of assuming the central role among the P3 major global powers, namely China, Russia and the US. This would mean his becoming de facto, if not de jure, Emperor of the Earth. No real opposition from Russia, which has a major war partly taking place on its own soil to deal with, and only some annoying sparring by China, on rare earth exports, tariffs, and its global governance plan anchored on state sovereignty. Let Brazil, South Africa, Canada or Venezuela try to sabotage Mr. Trump’s ascension; from extra tariffs to a virtual siege or actual attack, they will soon have to give up and comply.
One wonders whether this, somewhat caricature-ish ascendance of a leader to a unique position of power and influence can buttress a revamped global system of effective peace and security, prosperity and justice. If Mr. Trump meant what he promised his US voters, he should not involve the US in new adventures abroad, he should stay out of old or new wars and should spend no more blood and treasure of the American people far away from home. Maybe the reality will eventually dawn on Mr. Trump and his entourage that for peace to take hold in any of the eight (his count) conflicts he is supposed to have resolved as of now, and many more still around, there is a need for detailed agreements, broadly legitimized operational arrangements, monitoring by neutral actors on the ground, and a sense of humility that befits a sense of long-term historical perspective.
Dr Georgios Kostakos is Co-founder and Executive Director of the Brussels-based Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS). He has been a UN staff member, including with the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General, the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and field missions for political affairs and human rights. He has also worked with think tanks, academic institutions and as a consultant on global governance and sustainability, peace and resilience.
