Miami is the foreign policy headquarters of Trump 2.0
Donald Trump’s special envoy for peace missions Steve Witkoff jumped between Moscow and Miami this week for talks with Russia and Ukraine, further cementing South Florida — and Miami specifically — as the unofficial foreign policy headquarters in Trump’s second term.
Just weeks ago, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner handled sensitive conservations from their homes in Miami that led to an agreement between Israel and Hamas, according to the New York Times.
Now, they’ve again brought high-level foreign policy conversations to their own backyard, this time in hopes of landing an agreement to pause fighting in Ukraine.
“Miami really is the epicenter of Trumpworld outside of Washington, D.C., even more so I think than Palm Beach,” said Felix Lasarte, a Miami attorney who is also a member of Trump’s intelligence advisory board. “A lot of the deals and a lot of the foreign policy is really taking place in Miami.”
He sees it as a marked shift from the first Trump administration, in part driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Miami native. A third of Trump’s ambassador nominees are also from Florida, according to a review this summer by the Herald.
“The second Trump administration is a much smaller, tighter group, much more loyal to the president,” Lasarte said. “Miami has a lot of people that he trusts.”
Ukrainian and U.S. officials met Sunday at a golf course and clubhouse developed by The Witkoff Group in neighboring Hallandale Beach for talks led by Rubio. Witkoff and Kushner headed to Moscow for talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin Tuesday.
On Thursday, Witkoff and Kushner held a meeting with the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Rustem Umerov in Miami. A senior U.S. official said Witkoff and Kushner requested the location.
“Special Envoy Witkoff and Mr. Kushner invited Secretary Umerov to Miami for a meeting, and Secretary Umerov agreed,” the official told the Miami Herald. “Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner are both local to Florida.”
Kushner lives in Indian Creek Village, the exclusive Biscayne Bay island off Miami Beach.
While Trump characterized that five-hour discussion in Moscow as “a very good meeting,” Russian officials announced there was “no compromise yet achieved.”
When the Herald asked why they didn’t stop in Europe to talk to Zelensky instead — a move some European allies saw as sidelining, according to reporting by the Kyiv Post — the official said “the timing didn’t work.”
Whether for convenience or strategy, Trump’s administration is placing South Florida on a pedestal historically held by D.C., New York or Geneva for high-stakes international negotiations. The building momentum around Miami as Trump’s foreign policy headquarters will hit a peak with the global G20 summit in Doral next December.
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