Over the past weekend, senior-level delegations from at least nine countries convened in a single location for parallel talks on Ukraine and Gaza. The venue was not Geneva or Paris, but a large private country club near Miami, co-owned by Steve Witkoff—the chief negotiator for President Donald Trump on both tracks.
Since joining Trump’s team in January, Witkoff has split his working time between the White House and an office at his Shell Bay club, while simultaneously flying on his own private jet to European and Middle Eastern capitals. At his own expense, he has been conducting negotiations on Ukraine, Gaza, Iran’s nuclear program, and a range of other issues.
Ahead of the Gaza agreements in October, representatives from Middle Eastern countries began regularly traveling to South Florida for meetings with Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who also resides in Miami. In recent months, Shell Bay has also hosted several rounds of closed-door consultations on Ukraine. It was there that Witkoff and Kushner, with the participation of Russian representative Kirill Dmitriev, prepared the first draft of Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.
Two weeks later, Ukraine’s national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, arrived at the club in Hallandale, Florida, where Witkoff and Kushner laid out the parameters of the plan in detail. In late November, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the Shell Bay venue for a more formal round of talks with the Ukrainian delegation.
The choice of location proved convenient for sensitive discussions—the club is far from Washington and largely beyond the reach of the press. It is situated roughly an hour south of Mar-a-Lago and about half an hour north of Miami Beach. Opened in 2023, the club reportedly requires a membership fee exceeding one million dollars. Diplomats who visited Shell Bay for meetings with Witkoff noted that they also crossed paths with senior executives from major corporations who had come to play golf. “This is clearly the place to be. Friday—Gaza. Saturday—Ukraine,” one Western diplomat said, commenting on that weekend’s talks.
On Friday, the club became a hub of intensive diplomatic activity. National security advisers from Ukraine, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom discussed the U.S. peace plan and possible security guarantees for Ukraine with Witkoff and Kushner. On Saturday, Kirill Dmitriev arrived in Miami and held a meeting at the club with Witkoff and Kushner. The aim was to present the Russian side with an updated version of the plan and to gauge Moscow’s response.
On Sunday, Witkoff said that the White House team had met with Ukrainians and Europeans for three consecutive days, and with Dmitriev for two days, describing both negotiating tracks as “productive.”
In parallel, on Friday, Shell Bay hosted a meeting between Witkoff, the prime minister of Qatar, the head of Egypt’s intelligence service, and Turkey’s foreign minister, focused on the situation in Gaza. The following day, the parties issued a joint statement underscoring the need to move to the second phase of the Gaza deal and to create conditions for the launch of a new Palestinian governing authority in the enclave.
On Saturday, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Umerov had called him from Miami to brief him on a U.S. proposal to hold a trilateral meeting at the level of national security advisers involving the United States, Ukraine, and Russia. Zelensky responded cautiously. If such a meeting does take place, Witkoff already has a suitable venue at his disposal.