PARIS – A convicted felon and Trump’s family insider turned US ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, will soon land in Paris – not to sip French wine, but to do business.
Kushner’s name is already infamous in the US. In 2005, he was sentenced to two years in a federal prison in Alabama on multiple charges, including tax fraud and witness tampering.
He admitted at the time to having hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating in a federal investigation into campaign financing.
Fifteen years later, Trump granted him a full pardon in the final month of his presidency. Kushner expressed his gratitude by donating $1 million in 2023 to Trump’s Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC.
Now, with the Senate’s confirmation on 19 May, the father of Trump’s son-in-law is taking on one of the US most visible diplomatic roles.
A mission
Trump’s instructions for his man in Paris are very clear: “greater balance” in Franco-American economic relations and “combat harmful regulations that target American companies.”
That mission is unlikely to go down with French President Emmanuel Macron, who urged major French companies in early April to “suspend” their investments across the Atlantic following the announcement of increased US tariffs.
Kushner has also pledged to press Paris to increase its military budget well beyond NATO’s current 2% of GDP target, as the country “spends far too little on its own defence.”
This comes even as France has already announced a gradual rise in defence spending to €67.5 billion by 2030, up from €50.5 billion this year.
Lastly, there’s Israel. As a staunch supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, Kushner will be tasked with “putting pressure” on Macron to be less vocal “about Israeli excesses in Gaza,” according to essayist Romuald Sciora, an associate fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.
A businessman, not a bon vivant
During his confirmation hearing on 1 May, Kushner told the US Senate that he knew nothing about “French art or wine” but had a lot to say about “business.”
It’s a family speciality. The Kushner fortune has multiplied nearly fourfold since Trump’s first election, from $1.8 billion to $7.1 billion in 2024.
His Paris post also puts him closer to his son Jared’s growing European ventures. Just a year ago, he said he wanted to invest €900 million to build luxury hotels, villas, and flats in Albania and Serbia via his investment firm Affinity Partners.
A few days ago, a Serbian cultural heritage protection official admitted to having falsified documents to permit the demolition of the former Yugoslav army headquarters in Belgrade – a listed historic monument bombed by NATO in 1999 – on whose ruins Jared plans to erect a hotel.
‘Good news’
Kushner’s arrival in Europe could nevertheless be “a good thing,” former French ambassador to the US, Gérard Araud, told Euractiv.
“The Trump administration is completely dysfunctional. Having someone close to the White House will allow Paris to get messages across.”
“When I was posted in Washington in 2017, senior US officials didn’t know what Trump would say that day or what he meant by what he said the day before. I constantly had to tell Macron to call the American president,” he continued.
The billionaire is clearly close to the president, even “a member of the family,” as Trump explained during the reopening ceremony of Notre Dame last December.
Kushner’s appointment, in any case, “is in line with all the others made since Trump returned to power – all close associates,” said Ludivine Gilli, a US affairs specialist at the Jean Jaurès Foundation.
Last November, former Fox News presenter Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr., was appointed US ambassador to Greece.
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