Witkoff’s elevated status clear in Moscow meetingpublished at 15:31 British Summer Time 25 April
Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent
Image source, EPAThe US president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (L) with Russian President Vladimir Putin (R)
Steve Witkoff may not be US secretary of state, but he sure is acting like it – and that appears to be exactly what Donald Trump wants.
The real estate developer has the president’s trust, in a way that the Florida politician, former rival and actual Secretary of State Marco Rubio does not.
When the stakes are highest, such as today’s negotiations over the Ukraine War in Moscow, it is Witkoff, not Rubio, who has taken the lead.
The same is true with the recent high-level negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme and multi-party efforts in the Middle East to end the Gaza War. So far there haven’t been any public indications that Rubio and his State Department team are unhappy by Witkoff’s prominent role.
There haven’t been any reports of dust-ups, as there were between Rubio and agency-slashing Doge head Elon Musk.
For the first time perhaps since adviser of national security Henry Kissinger’s elevated status early in Richard Nixon’s presidency, however, it’s seems clear that the US secretary of state is not America’s top diplomat.
