The diplomat, John Coale, says his personalized approach gets results and matches the president’s style. Critics contend he is giving up too much to an authoritarian leader.
When John Coale, a friend of President Trump’s serving as a diplomat in Eastern Europe, was asked on short notice to meet with Belarus’s strongman leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, he followed colleagues’ advice to “yuk it up.”
It was perhaps a surprising suggestion. The U.S. government had given Mr. Lukashenko the diplomatic cold shoulder after he asked President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for help in 2020 to violently suppress pro-democracy protests. Mr. Lukashenko further isolated his country by letting Mr. Putin use Belarus as a staging ground for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years later.
Still, Mr. Coale gave it a shot, arriving in Belarus’s capital, Minsk, last year armed with wisecracks and banter. As the special envoy to Belarus, he began building a relationship with Mr. Lukashenko over dirty jokes, vodka shots and weight-loss advice. Their rapport paved the way for Belarus to free 500 political prisoners and grant pardons for several hundred more. Its leader has also become a back channel between the United States and Russia, which is Belarus’s closest ally.
In exchange, Mr. Coale has negotiated sanctions relief for Mr. Lukashenko and has offered a road map to normalizing ties between the United States and Belarus.
“Humor is a gigantic weapon,” Mr. Coale, 79, said in a recent interview in Washington at a private club overlooking the White House. “If you can get the other guy laughing, you’re halfway there and you’re not a threat.”
Their repartee embodies Mr. Trump’s preferred personalized, deal-making approach to diplomacy. The president often sidelines career diplomats in favor of envoys like Mr. Coale, a lawyer with little previous government experience. Mr. Trump relishes the drama of high-profile prisoner exchanges and hostage releases, counting them as wins that offer a clearer narrative of success than more complex geopolitical conflicts.
Mr. Coale’s efforts have earned him attention from the president. Mr. Coale said the two have discussed expanding his mission to include liberty for political prisoners anywhere in the world. The White House declined to comment publicly.
To critics, Mr. Coale is rewarding a corrupt, authoritarian government. Some Belarusians are uncomfortable with exchanging sanctions relief for political prisoners. Activists have called the judicial system “a conveyor belt” because new political prisoners are being locked up while others are being released. Others allege that effectively trading freedom for sanctions relief “encourages human trafficking.”
