The Fourteen Points were a series of proposals made on January 8, 1918 by the American President Woodrow Wilson to create new morally defensible objectives for the Triple Entente, which could serve as a basis for peace negotiations with the Central Empires.
Wilson's intention was to present some war aims for the Entente that would allow peace to be reached and counteract the Bolshevik pacifist propaganda; Trotsky's proposal to negotiate an immediate peace had been rejected by the Entente shortly before and he wanted to avoid with his own proposal the adverse effect of having refused to negotiate peace while the Central Powers had accepted.
The president based his proposals on the suggestions presented in a report of the informal meeting of the Congress of the United States in charge of preparing the future peace conference a few days before.