Trump is leaning on son-in-law Jared Kushner for difficult diplomacy
[December 22, 2025]
By MATTHEW LEE and AAMER MADHANI
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the dawn rose on President Donald Trump’s second
term, one key figure from his first administration stood back, content
to focus on his personal business interests and not retake a formal
government role.
Now, nearly a year into Trump 2.0, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has
been drawn back into the foreign policy fold and is taking a greater
role in delicate peace negotiations. Talks had initially been led almost
solo by special envoy Steve Witkoff, a real estate mogul who had no
government experience before this year.
The shift reflects a sense among Trump’s inner circle that Kushner, who
has diplomatic experience, complements Witkoff’s negotiating style and
can bridge seemingly intractable differences to close a deal, according
to several current and former administration officials who, like others,
spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.
That role was on display this weekend as Kushner and Witkoff took part
in a blitz of diplomacy in Miami.
On Sunday, they concluded two days of talks with Russian negotiator
Kirill Dmitriev in Miami on the latest proposals to end Russia’s war in
Ukraine.
The talks with Dmitriev came after they met on Friday in Florida with
the Ukrainian negotiating team, led by Rustem Umerov, as well as senior
British, French and German national security officials. The Ukrainians
and European officials stuck around Florida for more talks with U.S.
government officials facilitated by Trump's envoys.
Witkoff and Kushner also squeezed in meetings on Friday with Turkish and
Qatari officials to discuss the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas
in Gaza as they look to implement the second phase of Trump’s ceasefire
plan.
Kushner and Witkoff employ contrasting styles
Witkoff, a longtime pal of Trump's, is seen by some inside the
administration as an oversize character who has traveled the world for
diplomatic negotiations on his private jet and does not miss an
opportunity to publicly praise the president for his foreign policy
acumen, the officials say.
Kushner has his own complicated business interests in the Middle East
and a sometimes transactional outlook to diplomacy that has distressed
some officials in European capitals, a Western diplomat said.
Still, Kushner is seen as a more credible negotiator than Witkoff, who
is viewed by many Ukrainian and European officials as overly deferential
to Russian interests during the war that began with Moscow's invasion in
February 2022, the diplomat said.
“Kushner has a bit more of a track record from the first
administration,” said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat and former
U.S. ambassador to Georgia who now teaches diplomacy at Northwestern
University. Kelly stressed, however, that the jury is still out on
Kushner's intervention.
Trump views Kushner as a “trusted family member and talented adviser”
who has played a pivotal role in some of his biggest foreign policy
successes, said White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly.
Trump and Witkoff "often seek Mr. Kushner’s input given his experience
with complex negotiations, and Mr. Kushner has been generous in lending
his valuable expertise when asked,” Kelly added.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott called Kushner “a world-class
negotiator.” Pigott noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is
grateful for Kushner's "willingness to serve our country and help
President Trump solve some of the world’s most complex challenges.”
In an interview with CBS' “60 Minutes” in October, Kushner spoke about
his unconventional approach to diplomacy.
“I was trained in foreign policy really in President Trump’s first term
by seeing an outsider president come into Washington with a different
school of foreign policy than had been brought in place for the 20 or 30
years prior,” he said.
But some Democrats and government oversight groups have expressed
skepticism about Kushner's role in shaping the administration policies
in the Middle East while he manages billions of dollars in investments,
including from Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s sovereign wealth funds through
his firm, Affinity Partners.
Similarly, Witkoff has faced scrutiny for his and his family's deep
business ties to Gulf nations. Witkoff last year partnered with members
of Trump's family to launch a cryptocurrency company, World Liberty
Financial, which received a $2 billion investment from a United Arab
Emirates-controlled wealth fund.
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Jared Kushner with his wife, Ivanka Trump, acknowledges applause at
the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025.
(Saul Loeb/Pool via AP, File)
“What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call
experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the
world,” said Kushner, who is not drawing a salary from the White
House for his advisory role.
White House counsel David Warrington said in a statement that
Kushner's efforts for Trump "are undertaken in full compliance with
the law.”
“Given that Jared Kushner was a critical part of the efforts leading
to the historic Abraham Accords and other diplomatic successes in
the first Trump Administration, the President asked Mr. Kushner to
be available as the President engages in similar efforts to bring
peace to the world," Warrington said in a statement, referring to
Trump's first-term effort that normalized relations between Israel
and several Arab nations. "Mr. Kushner has agreed to do so in his
capacity as a private citizen."
Kelly and other veterans of U.S. diplomatic encounters with the
Russians over many years are also skeptical about Kushner's ability
to secure a Russia-Ukraine deal because Witkoff technically remains
in the lead.
“I don’t see that the Witkoff approach is going to work,” Kelly
said. “He doesn’t really read the Russians well. He misunderstands
what they say and reports the misunderstandings back to Washington
and the Europeans.”
“They seem to have this idea that the magic key is money: investment
and development," Kelly said. "But these guys don’t care about that,
they are not real estate guys except in the sense that they want the
land, period.”
Kushner was out of the spotlight until he wasn't
For the first half of the year, Kushner stayed out of the spotlight,
even as he pushed, unsuccessfully in some cases, to install some
former associates — those with whom he worked on negotiating the
Abraham Accords — into powerful roles in the new administration,
according to the current and former administration officials.
Kushner had told Trump and others that while he would not be joining
the second-term White House, he stood ready to offer his counsel if
it was desired. That is a role he also played on a few occasions
during the Biden years as the Democratic administration tried,
without success, to expand the Abraham Accords.
Although Kushner remained an informal sounding board for Trump and
top advisers, he resisted getting directly involved, even as the
president expanded his peacemaking pursuits, until it became clear
to him and others that the job might be too much for Witkoff to seal
on his own, the officials said.
As Trump’s efforts to forge an agreement to end the Israel-Hamas war
in Gaza faltered over the summer, Kushner came in, trading on his
experience and contacts in negotiating the Abraham Accords to help
Witkoff push Trump’s plan over the finish line.
Agreed to in late September after frantic talks surrounding the
annual U.N. General Assembly, the 20-point plan is still a work in
progress, but its implementation is being coordinated by Kushner and
numerous members of his Abraham Accords team.
“We always bring Jared when we want to get that deal closed,” Trump
told Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, shortly after the agreement.
“We need that brain on occasion.”
As soon as the Gaza plan was finalized, Kushner said he was
returning to his family and day job in Miami, where he heads a
multibillion-dollar private equity firm. His involvement in
high-stakes peacemaking was only temporary, Kushner said, joking
that his wife, Ivanka, might change the locks if he did not get home
soon.
“I’m gonna try to help set it up, and then I’m gonna hopefully go
back to my normal life,” Kushner said in October.
But within weeks of shepherding the Gaza ceasefire, Trump turned
again to his fixer-in-law to dive into the Russia-Ukraine
negotiations. They had been deadlocked for months despite persistent
efforts by the White House to lure both Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy into an agreement.
Trump hinted then that he would continue to lean on Kushner when the
stakes are highest, just as he has done.
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