Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff view global diplomacy through the lens of a real-estate venture, prioritizing a business mindset over traditional statecraft.

 

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff view global diplomacy through the lens of a real-estate venture, prioritizing a business mindset over traditional statecraft. As President Trump’s primary envoys for major conflicts, including those in Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran, they operate on the belief that complex international issues can be solved by small, agile teams of "dealmakers" rather than large bureaucratic institutions.

 

Core Philosophy: Diplomacy as Real Estate

Business Relationships over Bureaucracy: They rely on personal, trusted relationships forged through decades of private-sector business. They explicitly reject the label of "conflict of interest" for their business ties in the Middle East, instead calling it "experience" that provides the necessary leverage for negotiations.

Simplicity vs. Complexity: Kushner has summarized their perspective by stating, "The issues are simple, and the people are complicated". They believe the technical details of peace—such as raising reconstruction funds for Gaza—are the "easy part" compared to managing the personalities involved.

Action-Oriented "Freewheeling": They often bypass traditional diplomatic protocols. Critics describe their approach as "freewheeling," which they defend as a necessary departure from "failed" traditional approaches.

 

Key Strategic Outlooks

The Middle East: Their view is heavily influenced by the Abraham Accords framework, focusing on economic normalization and regional "togetherness" between Israelis, Palestinians, and Arab states.

Peace through Reconstruction: For post-war Gaza, they envision a plan centered on massive reconstruction and building projects, leveraging their backgrounds as developers to drive the process.

Global Conflicts: They have been tasked with a "trifecta" of challenges—Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran—simultaneously. They see these not as separate geopolitical struggles, but as interconnected "intractable conflicts" that require a unified dealmaking strategy.

Their approach is characterized by a "Board of Peace" model, which they launched at the World Economic Forum to apply private-sector discipline to global stability.