How Jared
Kushner, Steve Witkoff see the world
The
countries and actors may be different, but the general idea – that diplomacy is
similar to a business deal – is the same.
By Diana
Nerozzi
03/10/2026
05:00 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/10/how-jared-kushner-steve-witkoff-see-the-world-00820113
The
failed attempt to secure a peaceful resolution with Iran has not shaken the
president’s faith in the two men he put in charge of making peace around the
world.
Special
envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are in
charge of solving some of the world’s most intractable conflicts and even as
the war with Iran expands, the president insists his top diplomats are the best
men for the task.
“I think
they’re doing a great job,” President Donald Trump told POLITICO in a brief
phone interview Friday. “People like that you can’t hire.”
The
unprecedented dynamic of two men leading negotiations with Iran, Israel and
Hamas and Ukraine and Russia – sometimes all in one afternoon – underscores how
the Trump administration believes peace deals should be forged. It views
diplomacy like a real-estate venture, requiring a business mindset and a small
team tasked with securing a big development deal, according to two
administration officials granted anonymity to explain how the president’s
closest advisers think about their mission.
And if
negotiations with one party fail as they did with Tehran, use the failure as
leverage for another deal.
Trump, on
Friday, did just that, suggesting that the war with Iran may prove a boon for
Kushner’s notable first-term achievement – the Abraham Accords, which
normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
“A lot of
people are going to be joining the Abraham Accords,” Trump said. “Now that Iran
is decimated, because you know that was always a fear over that.”
Adding
more countries to the Abraham Accords has long been a goal of the president to
bring larger regional stability and peace to the Middle East.
Trump’s
optimism comes as critics accuse the president of placing overwhelming trust in
underwhelming men. While Kushner and Witkoff, a New York and Miami real estate
developer, are widely lauded for shepherding the deal that brought home Israeli
hostages, their brokered ceasefire remains fragile and Hamas is still a force
in Gaza. Negotiations to end the Ukraine war have not produced a ceasefire. And
attempts to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program were
unsuccessful.
The
breakneck pace leads to a “risk of overextension,” said former State Department
negotiator Aaron David Miller, who served in both Republican and Democratic
administrations. The volume of detail required to handle three negotiations at
once is too much to place on two businessmen, and there is a risk that the
administration’s top negotiators lack a sufficient understanding of history and
psychology, “which is critically important to how the combatants in these
conflicts actually see matters,” Miller said.
The Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran deal the Obama administration negotiated
and Trump has widely panned, was 159 pages long and took two years to hammer
out.
But
Trump’s confidence is unwavering. “They don’t have too much,” he said. “They
actually have -- they have capacity for more, to be honest with you.”
The idea
of working on three deals at once with only two men at the helm is
unprecedented. And Trump’s use of “peace envoys” goes beyond usual practice, as
he hand picks his top negotiators without congressional confirmation.
The Trump
administration insists that a small team handling multiple fires around the
world has a better chance of success than a phalanx of diplomats and experts
tackling various regional conflicts, comparing high-stakes diplomacy to the
kinds of projects the Trump family has long been associated with.
Witkoff
and Kushner keep their teams small when negotiating major business deals and
approach the world stage in a similar way. One of the administration officials
noted that real estate deals begin at the top with a select few who have a
vision.
“Then
after that comes constructive managers and coordinating with engineers and
architects and so forth,” the first official continued. “So I just think that
we’re very good at understanding what the complicating features of a deal are.
We talk about it, we address it, then we figure out how we’re going to solve
it.”
Global
negotiations, like development deals, have “similar rhythms for transactions,”
said the second administration official.
“Some of
these conflicts, they all move the same way,” said the first administration
official, noting that the “game plan” receives input from Trump, Secretary of
State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and chief of staff Susie Wiles.
There is also a working relationship with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine.
“We’ve
had people say, ‘How can you have such a small team?’ Well the beginning of the
decision making here on the game plan doesn’t require a big group,” the first
administration official said.
Witkoff
and Kushner’s one-size fits all approach was most evident last month in Geneva
when the duo met with the Ukrainians, the Russians and the Iranians in one day,
attempting to secure separate deals to end the four-year-war in Ukraine and
halt Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
They met
with the Iranians from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., met with the Ukrainians from 1
p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and spoke to the Russians after that, the second
administration official said. That was followed by a dinner with the Ukrainians
and regional partners, including Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and
Switzerland. The dinner was followed by another meeting with the Russians from
9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Witkoff
and Kushner have “tried to take the approaches that work [in Gaza] and then
bring them to these other conflicts. And obviously [they] have to modify them
to the personalities and the dynamics,” said the second administration
official.
The
countries and actors may be different, but the general idea – that this is
similar to a business deal – is the same.
That
business approach doesn’t sit well with everyone, especially those accustomed
to a traditional diplomatic approach with experts and fixed administration
channels.
“A
business mindset can be desirable for diplomatic negotiations – clear-eyed, no
nonsense, results oriented,” said a State Department official in Trump’s first
term, granted anonymity to express their views on the current administration.
“But that should mean understanding with whom you’re doing business. Business
experience is no substitute for understanding the region, Islam, and the
interests of Hamas and Iran as they understand their interests.”
The two
administration officials say a small team avoids damaging leaks and pushed back
on the idea that Witkoff and Kushner don’t avail themselves of subject matter
experts. The National Security Council staff worked on negotiations between
Israel and Hamas and State Department officials are involved in negotiations
around the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We
always consult with Marco and his team and [deputy national security adviser]
Robert Gabriel in terms of who the right team is in the government to support
these efforts,” the second administration official said.
For the
Iran negotiations, Witkoff and Kushner consulted with the CIA, DOD and State
Department nuclear experts, the first official said.
But at
other times, it’s just the two close friends of Trump, “sitting at a keyboard
for a couple of hours” and typing up sensitive materials like the 20-point
Israel-Gaza peace plan, per the second administration official.
“Their
main asset, which is necessary but not sufficient, is their relationship with
the president, and as a consequence of that relationship, their capacity to get
through all of the bureaucratic hurdles that are imposed by our partners,” said
Miller, currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
A Biden
administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Trump
administration, agreed that Kushner and Witkoff have a leg up because everyone
knows they are among a select few Trump listens to.
The
modern geopolitical arena responds better to negotiators close ties to the
president who can think outside the box, the person said, rather than textbook
expertise in the issue -- something that can be gathered from experts working
under them.
The
administration contends that Witkoff and Kushner have had more success than
they get credited for – pointing to Gaza, specifically. There was also a large
prisoner exchange last week between Russia and Ukraine that Witkoff credited to
their sustained diplomatic efforts.
With
Iran, the administration notes, Tehran simply wouldn’t negotiate.
“They
said, ‘we have the inalienable right to enrich,’” Witkoff said Saturday night
aboard Air Force One. “They bragged about having 60 percent enriched fuel,
enough for 11 bombs. They told me and Jared, ‘we’re not going to give you
diplomatically what you take militarily.’”
And in
Ukraine, officials insist that a breakthrough is just a matter of when, not if,
and random events can become inflection points for a deal.
“These
things are so mercurial. Things are changing all the time,” the first official
said, explaining that the “inflection point” for the Israel-Hamas negotiations
was Israel striking Qatar, not something that the U.S. planned or approved of.
That
gives them faith that there is a chance — however slim — that something will
break their way with Russia and Ukraine — and force Putin or Zelenskyy to
change their political calculus.
Cheyenne
Haslett contributed to this report.
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