Trump’s Go-To Broker Takes NYC-Style Dealmaking to World on Edge

The photo is propped on a chair in the West Wing — a reminder, as if one were needed, of the abrupt turn life has taken for Steve Witkoff.

Inside the frame, Witkoff has just alighted from his private jet at Joint Base Andrews. With him is Marc Fogel, an American who’d been detained in Russia on drug charges. Witkoff helped broker his release with the Kremlin.

Since being named President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East — and now assistant to the president — Witkoff’s role has rapidly expanded. He has helped negotiate a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and ...