Harold Black PhD

Negotiations with Iran have a long history of falling apart, so it’s hardly shocking that the latest round — led by two men with no diplomatic background — has collapsed too. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff built their careers closing real estate deals, not brokering peace between nations. Yet Trump keeps turning to them, having already tapped the pair to handle talks with Russia over Ukraine.

Their track record is not encouraging. Politico has reported that Ukrainian and European officials point to Witkoff’s go-it-alone approach as part of the problem, noting that he has resisted input from experts and allies and has, at times, approached the war as though it were a real estate negotiation rather than a geopolitical conflict.

Compounding the problem, the administration’s downsizing of the State Department has left both the Russia and Iran negotiating teams thin on career diplomats and regional experts. Adding the inexperienced Kushner to the Iran talks only deepens that gap. The administration’s defense is that a small, nimble team beats a large phalanx of diplomats — essentially applying a dealmaker’s mindset to statecraft. But as one official put it, a business mentality only works if you actually understand who you’re dealing with; commercial instincts are no substitute for grasping the region, Islam, and the actual interests of Iran and its allies.

Kushner’s presence on the team raises additional concerns given his family’s long, close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. More troubling still are allegations that details from the talks have been leaked to Israel, and that Kushner has used his position for personal financial gain. According to Common Dreams, Kushner has simultaneously been courting Middle Eastern governments to invest billions in his private equity firm, Affinity Partners.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/jared-kushner-iran-private-equity

The New York Times has reported that Kushner discussed a potential $5 billion investment from Middle Eastern backers into that fund — notable given that he said in December 2024 the firm wouldn’t need to raise capital for four years, specifically to sidestep conflict-of-interest concerns. I guess he forgot.

Elizabeth Warren has criticized the arrangement, arguing that while American troops face danger in the Middle East, Trump’s envoy is out fundraising for his own firm. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has claimed a fair deal between the US and Iran was within reach before hostilities escalated — though any statement from Iranian officials deserves real skepticism. But Kushner’s firm does do substantial business with foreign partners who have direct stakes in the very conflicts he’s supposed to be neutrally negotiating.

The clearest conflict of interest involves oil. Any settlement with Iran would likely include lifting sanctions on Iranian crude — and Kushner’s clients, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, are themselves major oil producers. Since Iran sits outside OPEC, easing those sanctions would boost global supply and could push prices down, cutting against the interests of the very governments Kushner represents commercially. Simultaneously negotiating US foreign policy while collecting substantial fees from foreign governments raises serious legal questions, and at minimum, a clear ethical problem.

Drop Site News has reported an even more explosive claim: that an Iranian official told Vice President Vance – which of course he denies – that Kushner and Witkoff are more focused on using inside knowledge of the talks to profit in financial markets than on reaching an actual agreement. The outlet also cited concerns from Iranian negotiators about Kushner relaying details directly to Netanyahu and an Axios report that Witkoff and Kushner speak with Netanyahu and Israel’s Mossad chief nearly daily. Iran reportedly presented documentation to mediators alleging that people close to Trump were exploiting the war and the diplomatic process to move financial markets.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/iran-jd-vance-kushner-witkoff-exploiting-negotiations

In fact, Iran calculated profits that from such alleged manipulation had reached $9 billion and formally requested, in writing, that Iran should share in the proceeds. “We have conveyed through intermediaries that $4.5 billion of this sum should also be allocated to the Iranian side,” the Iranian official said.

Drop Site also quoted an Iranian official describing Witkoff as having no real grasp of diplomacy, claiming he misrepresented Iran’s positions — including on the fate of its enriched uranium stockpile — and that his mistaken read of the talks was passed straight on to Trump. Iran is reportedly pushing for larger negotiating delegations that include actual technical and country experts, noting that during earlier talks in Oman and Switzerland, Witkoff and Kushner arrived without nuclear or subject-matter specialists and seemed unfamiliar with the technical substance of the issue. Iranian negotiators say they laid out their enriched uranium stockpile in detail and viewed their own flexibility as the basis for what Araghchi called, on February 25, a possible “historic opportunity” for an unprecedented deal — an offer Witkoff apparently mischaracterized afterward as a threat to build multiple weapons.

I’d encourage anyone interested to read the full report. Statements from Iranian officials should be taken with real skepticism, but the allegations here are serious regardless: that Kushner and Witkoff used the negotiations for personal profit, that details were funneled directly to Netanyahu and Mossad, and that Iran’s actual positions were misrepresented to the president. Whatever the truth of those specific claims, the broader question stands — why rely on Kushner and Witkoff at all, rather than seasoned diplomats backed by real technical and regional expertise? More troubling is that if all of this is true, it is being done with the president’s knowledge and blessing.

[…]

Via https://haroldblackphd.com/2026/07/28/are-kushner-and-witkoff-profiting-off-the-iran-negotiations/