Jared Kushner's Role in US Foreign Policy

Does Donald Trump's son-in-law negotiate major foreign

policy deals for the United States without any government

job or Senate confirmation? The answer, of course, is

yes. In Donald Trump's second term, Jared

Kushner holds no formal title. He is not a cabinet

member. He is not a government employee.

He never faced a Senate confirmation.

Yet the president has publicly said that Kushner and the

special envoy Steve Witkoff are in charge of critical

efforts, including talks to disarm

Hamas and end the war in Gaza. Kushner has met

with Hamas leaders in Egypt one day and the Israeli

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next, carrying the

full weight of American diplomacy without the normal checks and

balances. The plan he is pushing requires

Palestinians, specifically Hamas, to fully disarm in

stages with no firm guarantees of Israeli withdrawal,

no independent Palestinian state, and no meaningful

concessions in return. When Hamas resists what

many see as a one-sided demand, the refusal is then

presented as proof that the Palestinians do not want peace,

giving Israel political cover to keep the war going

indefinitely. In a recent interview, he stated that

the United States is not going to restrict Israel's right to defend

itself if there are any imminent threats.

His power comes from absolute personal trust.

As Trump's son-in-law and architect of the Abraham Accords in

the

first term, he operates outside the State Department

chain of

command and answers primarily to the president alone, and

that closeness runs deep. Benjamin Netanyahu has

long been a family friend, and at least on one visit to

the United States, Netanyahu stayed at the Kushner

family home in New Jersey. Kushner and his wife

Ivanka are developing a multi-billion dollar luxury

resort on Albania's coast. The project sparked

mass protests known as the Flamingo Revolution, with demonstrators

accusing the Albanian government of selling public land and

ignoring environmental protections.

Kushner also runs a private equity firm heavily funded

by Gulf sovereign wealth funds. After leaving the White House in two

thousand twenty-one, Saudi Arabia's public investment fund

quickly committed two billion dollars.

Qatar and the UAE added roughly another one point

five billion dollars. By twenty twenty-five to twenty

twenty-six, the firm's assets had climbed to more than

six billion

dollars, with about ninety-nine percent coming from

non-US

investors, most of them from the same Gulf states he

deals with as a US envoy. Forbes estimates his

personal net worth has risen above one billion dollars, a

dramatic increase driven largely by management fees and

ownership of the firm. Those fees have totaled well over one

hundred and fifty million dollars in recent years.

Because he is not a formal government employee, he is not bound by

the strict ethics rules, financial disclosure requirements, and

conflict of interest restrictions that apply to cabinet members or

Senate-confirmed officials. He can continue raising and

managing billions from the very governments he negotiates with,

something that would be far more difficult, if not impossible,

under normal government employment.

Critics argue this arrangement has allowed him to enrich himself

through relationships built in public service, while the broader Trump

family network also benefits from the same access and

influence. When the son-in-law of the president can

negotiate

both war and peace, enrich himself from the very region

he handles, and answer to no one but the family, who is

really handling American foreign policy?