Washington – Presidents love to enjoy the patriotic brightness of bringing hostages home, none more than Donald Trump.
Negotiations on prisoners can be difficult and prices can be high, and experts warn that they quickly give hostages the concessions they want gives them incentives for more kidnappings. But immediate rewards are unequivocal: Americans, regardless of the party, want their compatriots to return.
A trade executed on Tuesday returned Marc Fogel to the United States after years in prison in Russia in exchange for Alexander Vinnik, who declared himself guilty in the United States for money laundering charges. Fogel, a teacher who was imprisoned for having marijuana who used to treat chronic pain, wore an American flag on his shoulders when Trump greeted him in the White House on Tuesday night.
“He has made the Americans bring a priority, and people respond to that,” said the special envoy of the United States for hostages, Adam Boehler, journalists on Wednesday. “Usually, he will empower his team. He will say: ‘I want to go out to this person’. We think of options. He approves them and then usually makes calls after “ensuring offers.
With the third anniversary of the Invasion of Russia of Ukraine that is coming and few apparent advances have been achieved to finish the war, Trump’s quiet movement can soften relations with Washington-Moscow. That, in turn, could help lay the foundations for the treatment Trump has promised to put to an end hostilities in Europe.
“The smartest thing you can do for Curry with the president of the United States is to bring Americans home,” Boehler said. “It has been clear about that.”
Administration officials would not reveal what, if something, otherwise, Moscow could have won in negotiations beyond Vinnik’s freedom. In the past, Russia has repeatedly refused to free Americans without receiving in exchange for their citizens that are of great importance for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin insisted, for example, on the release of a Russian murderer imprisoned in Germany as part of the administration of the president of a prisoner swap, Joe Biden, negotiated last fall.
“The Trump administration has traditionally framed these victories as something they obtained without giving up anything,” said Dani Gilbert, an assistant professor of Political Science at Northwestern University who studies hostage negotiations. “It is really difficult for me to imagine a world in which the statements of the Trump administration about Ukraine in the last 48 hours were not quid pro quo for the liberation of Fogel.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration described new parameters for a possible peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that are much more generous than any of the Biden administration. In a speech in Brussels on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailed the framework, which seemed to favor Putin’s demands that Ukraine does not recover his entire lost territory and that he did not admit to NATO.
Trump also made telephone calls separately on Wednesday with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and commissioned his main national security assistants to negotiate the end of the war. Vice President JD Vance plans to meet Zelenskyy this week outside a security conference in Munich.
The Republicans in Congress, with Trump’s support, cut American help to Ukraine in 2023. Democrats warned that Trump would leave Ukraine, giving Putin a very sought -after victory. Trump has insisted that he ensure a peace agreement that does not reward Moscow.
As happened
Trump assigned Steve Witkoff, a lifelong friend who is his special envoy for the Middle East, to take the initiative to commit to the Russians on an agreement for Fogel. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, US officials have not directly involved with Russian officials, except in rare coordination cases between military leaders to avoid accidents in combat areas.
Trump’s blessing triggered a lot of secret discussions in multiple governments, some involving the heir prince of Saudi Arabia as an interlocutor, who culminated in the release of Russia of Fogel, a school teacher in Pennsylvania. Witkoff rented his private plane to Moscow to pick it up.
“I received a call that I was going to be at the airport,” Witkoff said on Fogel on Wednesday. “And I called the president. I was delighted. He said: ‘Hears there fast.’
While the effort took a couple of weeks, the 72 hours prior to the launch of Fogel were the most critical, and the events were quickly developed.
Around 5:40 pm on Monday, the Witkoff plane took off from Dulles International Airport in Virginia, headed directly to Moscow.
It was 2:30 am in Moscow when Witkoff and two assistants to Boehler landed on the asphalt.
American officials were on the field in western Russia for less than 11 hours, based on an analysis of the Witkoff private plane flight pattern.
At the airport, Fogel walked to the plane. After they waited for the plane to be dismissed, with Fogel on board, the flight took off from Moscow that night on the way to the joint base Andrews, Maryland. Fogel posed for a photograph that holds a drink and a plate of cheese.
Once the plane was out of Russian airspace, Fogel called his family. “We call everyone in the United States,” Witkoff said. “I was doing a template.”
The Witkoff portfolio can now expand to include the efforts of the United States to negotiate an agreement to end the war.
“Witkoff would do what the president asked for,” said a White House official.
Partisan advantage
Trump has secured the releases of 10 Americans in the hands of foreign governments since he assumed the position less than a month ago. That achievement has given bipartisan applause in the midst of a broader landscape of ideological war in the capital of the nation. Trump is very aware of the political credit that comes with the release of arrested Americans, and his White House pumped a press release promoting support for the agreement of the officials of both parties.
“The return to Marc Fogel’s house is very delayed, and I know that every Pennsylvania, especially his family, will welcome him with open arms,” Senator John Fetterman said, D-Pa., Said Tuesday in X while expressed Your thanks to Trump and Witkoff. “I want to thank @potus and @Stevewitkoff for their efforts to finally bring Marc home.”
At the same time, Trump and his assistants have tried to convert returns into a partisan advantage. For years, Trump leveled strong criticism from Biden for the agreements he assured. They included an exchange that freed the star of the WNBA Brittney Griner in exchange for the Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout and one in which the United States released $ 6 billion for Iran, and then blocked the money in the midst of political recoil, in return of five Americans.
On Wednesday, the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, hit Biden for not having taken Fogel from Russia, creating a direct contrast between the two presidents.
“This is something that the administration biden supposedly tried to do for 3 and a half years,” Leavitt said in his regular information with journalists. “I think everyone should return and ask some of those officials of the Biden administration what they even tried to do, and why were they successful? Because for 3½ years, Marc Fogel sat in a Russian prison, and took him to the President Trump three three weeks to recover it on American soil. “
The former Biden administration officials welcomed the news that Fogel had been released, but had an important problem with the characterization of the Trump team of hostage negotiations in the last four years.
“Trump left Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan in Russia. We took them out,” said a national security officer of the Biden administration. “He left Citgo 6 in Venezuela. We took them out. He left Mark Frerichs in Afghanistan. We took it out. He left several Americans in Iran. We took them home.”
In more general terms, the administration official Biden said: “We brought home dramatically more American than him, and there were less Americans detained unfairly when we left the position that when he left the position” the first time.
First period Trump administration officials also defend their history.
Edward McMullen, a former American ambassador to Switzerland who was involved when the United States made an exchange of prisoners with Iran during Trump’s first mandate, said Trump has not only made of the Americans detained who return a priority, but is open to Dialogue in a way that others can resist.
“This is nothing new. When the president was in his first term, he made a priority to try to get all the prisoners who remained illegally and without coercion of Iran, from numerous countries where they were retained, ”said McMullen. “This is what is needed: a conversation, a recognition that the dialogue produces results, and that is where the president has that surprising success.”
