New Age – Trump bets on diplomacy without diplomats

President Trump’s most trusted envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (left).
Photo: AP

Over the past year, the Trump administration has engaged in unconventional diplomacy, gunboat diplomacy and, in the most sensitive crises, diplomacy without diplomats, ‘The New York Times’ notes.

On Tuesday, the administration tried all three tactics at once. In Geneva, President Trump’s most trusted envoys — his real estate friend Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner — engaged the Iranians in the morning, then the Russians and the Ukrainians in the afternoon.

It was a stark example of Mr. Trump’s conviction that the State Department and the National Security Council, the two institutions that have coordinated negotiations over global crises for nearly 80 years, are best left on the sidelines. And so, the Witkoff-Kushner duo has been at the center of recent efforts to end a nuclear crisis in Iran that has stretched over two decades, and a war in Ukraine that is days away from entering its fifth year.

By all accounts, Mr. Trump has confidence in their approach, reinforced by their negotiations last year to win a cease-fire in Gaza and the return of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas. And countries like Russia, Turkey and the Gulf Arab states have welcomed the arrival of the two men, with their transactional approach born of New York property negotiations, especially given the greater flexibility offered by Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner.

The language of deal makers

They talk the language of deal makers, and do not spend much time lecturing on human rights or democracy building. And not infrequently, their interlocutors on diplomatic issues are closely linked to the business deals that the Trump and Witkoff families are negotiating.

One person close to the Kremlin said that Russian officials appreciated Mr. Witkoff’s warmth and enthusiasm for the negotiations, even as they sometimes doubted his reliability as a messenger. But he was clearly new to the issues dividing Washington and Moscow, and at first brought no other American experts into his negotiations.

More recently, the Russians have been happy to have Mr. Kushner’s involvement, the person said, because of his more organized and structured approach.

Mr. Kushner, in an interview last October, said that his and Mr. Witkoff’s approach to diplomacy relied on being “deal guys” who “have to understand people.” Mr. Witkoff was known in real estate circles for major transactions, including buying the Woolworth Building, once New York’s tallest skyscraper, in 1998. Mr. Kushner followed his father, the real estate developer Charles Kushner, into the business and later expanded into private equity.

Mr. Kushner holds no official government title, and gets no government salary, while Mr. Witkoff is a U.S. “special envoy.”

Iran and Ukraine – different approaches

In the Iranian case, Mr. Trump is backing up his diplomacy with a threat of fairly imminent military action if there is no progress — maybe in days, perhaps in weeks. In the Russia-Ukraine case, he has slowed down the military pressure, halting the direct provision of arms to Ukraine that took place — with strong congressional support — in the Biden years.

The president has also cracked down on the Russian “shadow fleet” selling oil, exacerbating Mr. Putin’s economic problems, even while the Trump administration floats ideas about U.S. investment in Russia if a deal, almost any deal, can be announced.

The negotiations with Iran are overshadowed by the size of the U.S. naval force — a “great armada” in Mr. Trump’s telling — that is being assembled in the Red Sea, clearly positioned to strike if the president so decides. But the Iranians are hardly de-escalating. They have temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz because of Iranian live fire exercises, a not-so-gentle reminder of the country’s ability to throw energy markets into chaos.

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