Jared Kushner Breaks Silence After End of Trump Presidency — to Praise Biden’s Policy on Iran and China

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Jared Kushner, who maintained a silent profile since the clattering end of the Trump presidency, broke his silence with an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that offered surprising praise for the Biden administration.

The piece — which extols the success of the Abraham Accords, in which the U.S. brokered diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab nations — urges President Joe Biden to continue pushing for normalized relations in the Middle East, and credits the current president in ways surprising given the bitter and vitriolic 2020 presidential campaign.

Kushner, who served as senior adviser to President Donald Trump, his father in law, kicks off with a bold claim: “We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

“The Saudi people are starting to see that Israel is not their enemy,” Kushner writes, arguing a potential normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is on the horizon. “Relations with Israel are in the Saudi national interest and can be achieved if the Biden administration leads.”

It’s up to Joe Biden to continue that progress made in normalizing ties between Israel and the Arab world, and Kushner argues that the current president is well-positioned to do so:

The Biden administration, however, has one asset that the Trump administration never had—a relationship with Iran. While many were troubled by the Biden team’s opening offer to work with Europe and rejoin the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, I saw it as a smart diplomatic move. The Biden administration called Iran’s bluff. It revealed to the Europeans that the JCPOA is dead and only a new framework can bring stability for the future. When Iran asked for a reward merely for initiating negotiations, President Biden did the right thing and refused.

Kushner writes that Biden should hold firm in working towards a new deal with Iran, insisting “that any deal include real nuclear inspections and an end to Iran’s funding of foreign militias.”

“The table is set,” he writes. “If it is smart, the Biden administration will seize this historic opportunity to unleash the Middle East’s potential, keep America safe, and help the region turn the page on a generation of conflict and instability.”

The former senior adviser to Trump also adds in some surprising praise for Biden’s approach to China: “The Biden administration is making China a priority in its foreign policy, and rightly so—one of Mr. Trump’s greatest legacies will be changing the world’s view of China’s behavior.”

Read the full op-ed here.

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