Foreign & Public Diplomacy

President Donald Trump’s negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, seemed genuinely awestruck by their latest tête-à-tête with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Witkoff gushed that these meetings rank at “the top” of his life’s experiences. Both men talk of Russia as a potential partner and approach the country as businessmen who, like Trump, seek “win-win” solutions with Putin.

So it is worth recalling a lesson about Putin learned by another businessman turned government official - Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs. As treasury secretary, Paulson visited Beijing for the Olympics in August 2008, just as the global financial crisis was gathering force and markets were increasingly worried about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant institutions that guarantee most mortgages in the United States.

President Donald Trump’s negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, seemed genuinely awestruck by their latest tête-à-tête with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Witkoff gushed that these meetings rank at “the top” of his life’s experiences. Both men talk of Russia as a potential partner and approach the country as businessmen who, like Trump, seek “win-win” solutions with Putin.

So it is worth recalling a lesson about Putin learned by another businessman turned government official – Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs. As treasury secretary, Paulson visited Beijing for the Olympics in August 2008, just as the global financial crisis was gathering force and markets were increasingly worried about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant institutions that guarantee most mortgages in the United States.

In Beijing, Paulson received news that, he said, “took my breath away.” Russian officials had approached China and proposed that the two countries jointly dump large quantities of Fannie and Freddie securities. The aim was to intensify the pressure on the already-teetering American economy, probably pushing it off the edge. China........

© Foreign Policy