President Trump’s use of a personal envoy in key foreign negotiations, especially with Russia, has sparked tensions within his administration and raised doubts about the coherence and credibility of U.S. foreign policy.
Reports are circulating that Rubio is frustrated with being side-lined as the head of the American diplomatic service and has considered resigning, a report he denies as nonsense, yet the reports still circulate.
President Putin has also used a rich man, Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund, to meet with US officials, but he has an official capacity, and he presents the same points of view as the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov. There is no public difference of opinion between them or other Russian government representatives. But Russia has to be concerned with who they are dealing with in the negotiations with the United States, when talks are held with a personal emissary and not government representatives who set and conduct official US foreign policy. For whether or not tensions or differences of opinion exist on the Russian side, and these can arise in any negotiations, the official Russian position on the issues in question is consistent, no matter who is doing the talking.
Splits In Trump’s Team
In the case of the United States, their appear to be major differences between Trump and Witkoff on one hand and Rubio, Walz, the National Security Advisor, and General Kellogg, Trump’s others appointed emissary, regarding Ukraine, on the other hand, with Trump and Witkoff willing and ready to negotiate with Russia and seek an end to the Ukraine war on terms that allow them to save some face, while the others seem to be moving towards the European position and a more hard line against Russia.
Hardline Pressure on Trump
There is a lot of pressure on Trump and Witkoff to retreat from their position, to revert back to the long-standing objective of the United States, to bring Russia to its knees, and it comes from leaders of the EU, from Canada, from the Democrats and some Republicans in the US, and from the western media who cannot give up their anti-Russian propaganda. They castigated Witkoff for saying nice things about President Putin after his meetings with him, and for accepting the Russian position that it is the US and the neo-Nazi regime they put in power in Kiev who are responsible for the war in Ukraine. The attacks border on hysteria. The anger is palpable. As Trump bombs Yemen, murders women and children there, and supports Israel doing the same in Gaza on a mass scale, and Kiev bombs Russian civilians daily, the western media says nothing about it, while condemning Russia in the most vile terms for a missile attack on a meeting of military personnel in Sumy in which some civilians may have been harmed, what the Americans call “collateral damage.”
The Purpose of Using Personal Emissaries
So why do leaders of nations use private emissaries to conduct negotiations instead of the professional diplomatic representatives? It is a practice with an ancient history. The French made it famous during the reign of Louis XV during the wars in the mid-18th century, variously known as the Wars of the Austrian Succession, the Silesian Wars, and the Seven Years War. During those wars, Louis the XV often by-passed the diplomatic service and used secret envoys to convey messages and proposals to foreign heads of state. The names of the secret envoys were several but included Voltaire, who passed messages back and forth between Louis and Frederick the Great, who was Voltaire’s deep friend.
This practice became known as the Secret du Roi, secret of the king, and it has its advantages if handled carefully. It allows a government to explore options secretly it cannot afford to explore or propose openly, either due to concern about criticism or for fears about secrecy and security, since it is easier to ensure secrecy with one envoy than with many. But it has to be done with finesse so that the heads of state talking through these envoys can trust each other’s word, and so that a concrete resolution can be achieved that can then be implemented by the regular diplomatic service.
In the case of King Louis, his secret envoys were indeed acting in secret. No one except the envoy and the King and his opposing party knew about it. However, in the case of President Trump, the envoy acts in the open while the contents of the messages conveyed and answers received are held secret. The trouble with this method is that everyone knows meetings are taking place and has expectations about them that are frustrated due to the secrecy, and so rumours fly about what did or not take place at the meetings. This creates its own pressure, for meetings held in secret, as Louis used to conduct, that is, without anyone knowing about them, do not have this problem. Another reason for their use in those days is that Louis was an absolute monarch and he could come to terms with an adversary and make it work. He just had to give the order. Advisors might have objected, but he had that power, as did Frederick the Great. Trump is not an absolute monarch, though many think he wants to be. By himself, he cannot bind the United States government to anything permanently. He needs to have the approval of his cabinet, and for any major Treaty, the American Congress.
So why does Trump use a personal envoy with no official position in the American government, a personal business friend, to conduct negotiations with Russia, and Iran as well, and not his own Secretary of State? Clearly, he feels he can trust Witkoff to convey his personal views and proposals accurately and is comfortable with giving him discretion to make his own proposals as the situation may require, and does not feel that trust with Rubio. One can understand the reports of Rubio thinking of resigning. What role is there for him in any of this, or the Department of State? None apparently.
Can Trump Make A Peace Alone? Can Russia Rely On It?
One can ask, so what? What does any of this matter in the end if a deal can be made? None, if a deal is made. But the problem is that Russia or Iran cannot be sure that by coming to terms with the President Trump, using Witkoff, that they have come to terms with the American government as a whole, with the American establishment, that will still exist when Trump leaves office four years from now, nor even that a deal made with Trump will be kept by Trump himself, whose history of withdrawal from or throwing in the dust, Treaties he or his predecessors negotiated, and ratified by the US Congress, is notorious.
For unless the American establishment, the “deep state” if you will, the real powers in government in the USA, agree to any terms agreed upon, then any agreement will be temporary at best. How can Russia be sure that Trump can bind the United States to an agreement with Russia? It cannot. For waiting in the wings are the Blinkens and Clintons and Bidens of the USA, who want at all costs to carry on the war against Russia.
The other obvious problem is that the Trump did not first seek the agreement of the other co-belligerents in the war to his peace proposals, the British, French, Germans and the rest who, corralled into the war by the Americans, and who jumped in with enthusiasm, do not want to give up the attempt to bring down Russia after all they have invested in the project, nor does the regime in Kiev. They are not only angry at Trump’s hopes for peace but how he goes about it, ignoring them with contempt. They do not see Trump seeking a general peace, but seeking a separate peace, to their detriment, the denial of their hoped-for spoils of war.
Russia also has to take this into account. What can it mean to strike a deal with the USA alone, and one which may be temporary? What kind of deal? Trump does not offer anything concrete to the Russians. What can he offer? Can he offer the removal of “sanctions” in the economic war against Russia? Those put in place by Biden’s Executive Order, he could easily rescind. But he has not done it. Can he remove the EU sanctions? He cannot. Has he stopped shipping arms and ammunition to Kiev? Has he given any concrete, practical sign that he is serious about coming to terms with Russia’s clearly stated terms for a peaceful resolution of the conflict?
If he has a sincere desire to find a resolution, why are these issues not clearly addressed? Why has he not acted for peace by some gesture at least, aside from sending Witkoff to talk? Biden withdrew US forces from Afghanistan in days, something Trump refused to do, for he wanted that war to carry on. Why does Trump not order the removal of all US forces from Ukraine, Poland, Romania, the Baltic States- as a gesture at least? He could do it. But he does not. The Europeans would complain about the “threat from Russia.” Yet, Russia’s response is simple, the Red Army was withdrawn from all of Eastern Europe, a grand strategic gesture Russia may now regret, but one which told Europe, we are not your enemy, we are your friends. We want peace, not war, so we are removing our forces from your lands. What other guarantee do the Europeans need? None.
Trump Seeks Peace Yet Continues The War
But the Americans did not withdraw their forces from Europe in reciprocity; instead, against their own promises, they expanded their military presence in those same countries, moved NATO forces close in to Russia, to prepare for war. Can Trump offer President Putin the reversal of NATO’s expansion? Can he rescind the acceptance of all the new NATO states into NATO? No, he cannot. He would have to dissolve NATO to do it, and he does not seem to have any immediate intention to do that, instead he demands the EU countries pay more into NATO and build up their forces, for what? For one objective only, war on Russia. So how can he begin to talk with Russia about a new European Security Structure they insist upon when the old one lingers on, when the Europeans state openly their intent to prepare for war with Russia?
Can he agree to de Nazify Ukraine? Again he cannot. That can only take place with the overthrow of the NATO installed regime in Kiev, and the effective removal of the Nazi elements in it and their military formations. He cannot when, in the EU, Canada, and the USA, Nazis are celebrated. Only Russia can accomplish that.
Can he guarantee that Ukraine forces will vacate Novorossiya, that no further attacks on it will take place? Again, he cannot, since he seems to have lost control of Zelensky and the nationalist elements in Kiev who seem to be suicidal in their demand the war continue, and increasingly angry with Trump for trying to shake them down by taking control of their mineral and other resources, with some in Kiev now saying they would be better off making a deal with Russia than with the Americans.
Russia’s dilemma is that it faces not one enemy, but several and only one of them is at least willing to talk, and that not through normal diplomacy but through a personal emissary. Russia can dismiss the EU nations as irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but it is not just them they have to deal with, it is the entire anti-Russian alliance that has been built up all these years within Europe and within the United States of America. It may be that President Trump does seek a settlement of the Ukraine conflict, not from high moral motives, but for practical reasons. It may be that Witkoff has presented ideas to President Putin on how Russia can be satisfied and Russia’s terms met. We can hope so. Yet, many questions hang in the air and we, as citizens of the world, can only watch events unfold with puzzlement and anxiety, while wondering what our future will be.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events
