Make Money Not War: Trump’s Plan for Peace in Ukraine

0:05Back in October, at a beautiful waterfront home in Florida, three men quietly came together to try and end a war. It's three businessmen in a Miami Beach condo, hunched over a laptop, redrawing European borders, effectively trying to solve a geopolitical problem. The key protagonists were Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, as well as Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, a real estate tycoon that the president has known since the 80s, who is now Washington's emissary to Moscow, effectively. These men were trying to draft a plan to end the long and deadly conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a plan that would become the basis of lengthy peace talks that took place this week.

0:57But our colleague Drew Hinshaw says when these businessmen met in Miami, peace wasn't the only thing they were negotiating. That's according to people familiar with the talks. They're not only drafting a peace plan that, in their mind, is a way to end the war in Ukraine on terms Russia can accept. They're also looking at how do we bring in Russia's$2 trillion economy in from the cold, lowering down sanctions as part of a peace process.

1:25This is highly unorthodox and highly controversial. That's our colleague Joe Parkinson, who reports with Drew. They're fusing this idea that business should not be something which follows a peace deal, but something which should be integrated into the negotiation itself. Over the past few months, Joe and Drew, along with a team of Wall Street Journal reporters, have been investigating the Trump administration's approach to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. And what they found was a dramatic shift in U.S. diplomatic strategy, particularly when it comes to relations with the Kremlin. We spoke to dozens of officials over months.

2:04We spoke to diplomats. We spoke to former and current intelligent officers from the U.S., Russia, Europe. We spoke to lobbyists who are representing the businesses that want to step into a post-peace Russia. And the picture that they paint is really a remarkable story of business leaders working outside the traditional lines of diplomacy to try and cement a peace agreement with business deals. The Trump administration is approaching this peace process like a chapter out of Art of the Deal. The thinking is, we're going to come in there, we're going to settle this war and make sure that American companies benefit.

2:41They see the enmeshment of business interests as a way of securing peace, a way of people making money together rather than making war.

2:53Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, December 5th.

3:06Coming up on the show, inside the U.S.'s new Russia strategy, peace through business.

3:28Drew, can you talk to me about how this new diplomatic strategy came to be? The core of these meetings and of this entire peace process has been a two-man relationship between Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev. The Russians from the very beginning wanted to deal with Witkoff. Witkoff, Trump's billionaire friend and golfing partner, wasn't the most obvious choice. The president had originally appointed a former lieutenant general to lead the talks with Russia. But the Russians didn't want to work with him. So in February, they reached out and hosted Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin. Putin sits with him for hours.

4:06He flies home with an American prisoner. It's a real moment where Russia is saying, hey, if you work with us, we can do things together. At that moment, Witkoff starts to take over the Russia portfolio. Following that meeting, Witkoff, whose official title is Special Envoy to the Middle East, became increasingly involved in negotiations with Russia. Witkoff's counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev, is a Russian investment banker with degrees from Harvard and Stanford. Like Witkoff, Dmitriev isn't part of the Foreign Service establishment. But the two spoke the same language, business. Not long after, Witkoff's office requested to meet with Dmitriev in Washington.

4:47Now, the thing about Dmitriev is he's under sanctions. The Treasury Department sanctioned him in 2022 for leading Russia's sovereign wealth fund, which the Treasury called a slush fund for Vladimir Putin. This guy's effectively persona non grata in America. And if he's going to visit, the Treasury Department has to lift sanctions on him effectively. At first, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant had questions about the unique request. But the president had told Witkoff he wanted the war to end. And so the administration decided that it was worth the risk. And then from there, Dmitriev comes to the U.S.

5:26in April, and he's presenting a fantastic range of opportunities, as he would put it, for U.S. companies. What kind of opportunities are we talking about here? Joe, do you want to take this one? Russia, of course, is known across the world for its massive oil and natural gas and mineral wealth. And two things I think that the Trump administration see as key to the U.S. economy, but also key to the next stage of global growth, is of course energy in the first instance, and the second is minerals in the form particularly of rare earths. I think Dmitriya clearly understood that, and I think because he spoke both Wyckoff and the Trump administration's language of business in a way that other Putin officials didn't.

6:14He was able to lay out a buffet of options for how Russia's energy might begin to flow back into Europe, particularly, and other world markets. And it seems like that pitch resonated from the beginning. Dmitriev even says that Russia and the United States, who competed to get to the moon, this time we can cooperate together and help Elon Musk reach Mars. And I think from Dmitriev's perspective, what he told us is we can take this relationship of business trust and move it to a relationship of political trust, of solving this geopolitical problem of Ukraine, where you've got so many people dying every day.

6:58As Witkoff and Dmitriev continued to meet, business leaders in both the U.S. and Russia, many of whom had ties to Trump and Putin, were taking note, and they were quietly positioning their companies to profit if a peace deal came through. This is not the 1990s where McDonald's can't wait to get into Moscow. There's a really relatively small pool of people who are looking very closely at some pretty huge assets in the energy world. And a lot of them are close to the Trump family or our big Trump donors. A really good example is you have Gentry Beach. Gentry Beach is an investor from Texas. He was also a groomsman at Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding, and he was a donor to President Trump's campaign.

7:42Beach has been in talks to acquire a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project with a company called Novatek. Novatek is partly owned by a Russian billionaire who's very, very close to Putin. And that deal is dependent on the U.S. and U.K. removing sanctions on it, according to drafts of contracts that the journal reviewed. That's the kind of business that's interested in going back into Russia right now. In a statement, Beach said that partnering with Novatek would, quote, strongly benefit any company committed to advancing American energy leadership. Trump Jr. has told people he isn't doing business with Beach.

8:19But you're seeing different categories. So on the one hand, you've got these individuals that are definitely not household names. Gentry Beach, who has business interests in a lot of sectors. On the other hand, you have some of the biggest names in corporate America. ExxonMobil, our journal colleagues revealed earlier this year, had had secret meetings with Rosneft, which is the biggest Russian state oil and gas company, the opportunity is so potentially lucrative that I think these companies are obviously still interested in seeing what kind of options are available.

8:58Now, this is entirely a play that is dependent on there being a peace deal. At the moment, these assets don't make a huge amount of financial sense for the potential buyers. But if there was to be a peace deal, Europe still needs energy. Russia can provide the cheapest energy. And if American companies were somehow in the middle, it could be a bonanza, frankly. There's no evidence that Whitcoff or the White House have been briefed on these companies' efforts or that they're coordinating them. A person familiar with Whitcoff's thinking said Whitcoff is confident that any settlement with Russia would benefit America broadly, not just a handful of investors.

9:34According to our reporting, these conversations are happening, regardless of the extent that the Trump administration knows about them, the Trump administration sees it as, well, that's capitalism. Go forth and make money. We'll make the peace. You make the money. But this peace through business approach hasn't been an easy sell to America's traditional allies. That's next.

10:12As spring turned into summer, Dmitriev and Witkoff's relationship grew. Through one-on-one conversations, they charted their own course to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Witkoff went to Moscow multiple times. Meanwhile, the U.S.'s European allies struggled to get a meeting with Witkoff. And Witkoff never once visited Ukraine. It's become an issue for the Europeans. There was a group of European heads of state who wanted to talk to Witkoff and were trying to get him to use the kind of fixed line that they used to conduct sensitive diplomatic conversations. Witkoff demurred. He didn't want to use that line.

10:46He traveled too much to use it. So instead, he talks regularly with Dmitriev by phone about what are really increasingly ambitious proposals to make peace and have the U.S. and Russia go into business together.

10:59One place where we saw Europe really having to scramble was after Alaska. Back in August, Trump invited Putin to a summit in Anchorage. It was a turning point in U.S.-Russia relations. Putin hadn't stepped foot on American soil in a decade. Wyckoff and Dmitriev had believed that the time was right for a bilateral summit, had believed that there was a landing space where Putin and Trump could agree something in Alaska. And in Alaska, what our reporting found is that there was conversation about some of these shared business interests and shared business opportunities. It wasn't just a conversation about what was happening on the front line.

11:36Ultimately, Putin wasn't ready to do a deal and there wasn't a deal that the Ukrainians would have accepted. And that summit ended early. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven't quite gotten there, but we've made some headway.

11:58What the Europeans had to do after that summit was quickly try to reach out to Trump himself beyond Wyckoff in order to be able to convince him of their talking points. And you'll remember that spectacle of the European leaders sat in the Oval Office facing Trump as they tried to argue their case. We had a fantastic NATO summit together as the two largest and biggest economies in the world. We had the largest trade deal ever. That was one moment where things seemed to move back a little bit more towards the place where the Europeans and the Ukrainians were comfortable. Now we are here to work together with you on a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.

12:39Stop the killing. This is really our common interest. Stop the killing. But what we learned was that in the background, Wyckoff and Dmitriev were still in touch, were talking a lot. And ultimately, they had obviously got to a point at which they were ready to meet in Miami. And the 28-point plan was what came of that meeting. The plan drawn up in Miami was meant to stay under wraps. But a month later, the plan leaked. And it creates immediate protests from Europe. Leaders in Europe are saying, hey, this reflects mostly Russian talking points. And it just completely bulldozes through nearly all of Ukraine's red lines.

13:15This 28-point plan, which was leaked. It was a Russian plan. It was everything that Putin has been asking for. Ukraine would have to give up land and Russia make major gains in a leaked peace proposal. Saying that Europe had not been consulted in this at all, and that any peace plan needs the involvement of Ukraine and Europe. The leaked plan called for limiting the size of Ukraine's military and blocking the country's path to joining NATO. It also called for the surrendering of Ukrainian land to Russia that Russia hadn't conquered yet. Ukraine's European allies said these provisions not only rewarded Moscow for its invasion, they also weakened Ukraine's efforts to return its country to what it was before Russia attacked.

13:58The Polish prime minister looked at this plan and, on a conference call with other European leaders, offered his own pithy summary of what he thought. He said, we know this is not about peace. It's about business. Following the leak, Trump administration officials tried to assure Ukraine and Europe that the plan wasn't set in stone. European allies aren't reassured. They're worried that Russia, after violently redrawing borders, is going to get rewarded with commercial opportunities. How big of an issue is this for U.S.-Europe relations? This is a major moment of strain between the U.S. and Europe.

14:37European allies are genuinely asking themselves if they are still in an alliance with the United States. That's where we land, and it's an extraordinary moment to see the U.S. kind of floating in between Europe and Russia when it was historically the principal bedrock member of the Western alliance trying to contain Russia.

15:04This week, in an effort to revise the plan to get both Ukraine and Russia on board, peace talks took place. Meetings were held between the U.S. and Ukraine and the U.S. and Russia. European leaders also spoke with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. After hours of discussion, Putin rejected proposed changes to the peace plan that would better represent Ukraine's interests. No deal has been reached. What does it tell you that the U.S.'s new business-first approach hasn't worked yet? What I find fascinating is the idea that the U.S. is breaking to the table here. What if we just made money with Russia?

15:39Then there would never be a reason to go to war. That's not a new one. Joe and I have been in Europe for quite a while. You used to hear that same thing from the German government under Angela Merkel. You used to hear that from European leaders. That was the European consensus for decades, really, after the Cold War, was let's embrace Russia as a business partner. If we're buying their gas and if our companies are selling things to their middle class, then that will constrain Putin. That hasn't been the case at all. While that was happening, Putin invaded Georgia. He invaded the Crimea Peninsula.

16:11He kind of helped whip up the war in eastern Ukraine. And then finally he invaded in 2022. If anything, business with Russia in the European case constrained European foreign policy much more than it constrained Russian foreign policy.

16:29Is there anything to indicate that it might be different because it's America and not Europe? I think that's the administration's bet, is that why wouldn't Putin want to have a good relationship with America? We'll see. Putin has been talking about Ukraine for 30 years. This is his great project. A question for history will be whether Putin has been entertaining this business as peace approach because he sees it as a route to end the war. Or is this a way just to distract the U.S. and pacify the Trump administration while Russia continues to throw more young men into the battlefields of Ukraine to prolong a conflict that Putin feels it is his place in history to slowly, inevitably win?

17:13These negotiations really are never what they seem. There's always a hidden layer underneath. And there's such a paradox at the heart of this here because Putin, for a long time, clearly saw America as his greatest enemy. It's the country on which Russia tends to define its foreign policy and define a lot of its objectives against. And yet now I think Putin can see a generational opportunity, not just to realign Russia, but to potentially divide the old Western alliance, to divide America from Europe. Maybe it really will be transformational.

18:03That's all for today, Friday, December 5th. Additional reporting in this episode by Benoit Faucon, Rebecca Ballhaus, and Thomas Grove. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Pia Gidkari, Isabella Jepal, Sophie Codner, Ryan Knudsen, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Annie Menoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhi, Jivika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis, and me, Jessica Mendoza. This is our senior producer, Rachel Humphries, last week with us.

18:42Rachel, we're so grateful for what you've brought to the show. Good luck, and we'll miss you very much. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard, with help this week from Sam Baer. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Peter Leonard, Billy Libby, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking this week by Mary Mathis.

19:10Thanks for listening. See you on Monday.