President Trump’s personal lawyer brokered a deal to release political prisoners from Belarus after recommending weight loss jabs to the country’s president over dinner in Minsk.
Lifting the lid on the Trump administration’s approach to diplomacy, John Coale, the White House special envoy to Belarus, said that Alexander Lukashenko was intrigued by the American’s rapid dieting when they met earlier this year.
Coale told him that he was on “the fat drug” and gave Lukashenko a leaflet from Eli Lilly, the American pharmaceutical company that produces Zepbound, an injectable drug.
Lukashenko was given a leaflet about weight-loss drugs
JON CHALLICOM/GETTY IMAGES
According to Coale, it was not the first time that Lukashenko, who describes himself “the last and only dictator in Europe”, had inquired about weight loss drugs.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Coale said that the topic came up frequently on his visits to Belarus this year and that Lukashenko was often being encouraged to go on a diet.
Like the real estate tycoon Steve Witkoff, who has been given the job of speaking to President Putin about the future of Ukraine, Coale had little diplomatic experience before his appointment by the White House.
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He earned Trump’s trust by representing him in his legal battles with social media companies after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and was appointed special envoy to Belarus.
“My first thought is, ‘Where the hell is that?’” he said, recalling his reaction to being asked by Trump to oversee US diplomacy in the eastern European country.
Coale admitted he knew nothing about Belarus before his appointment
INTS KALNINS/REUTERS
Since becoming special envoy to Belarus, Coale has secured the release of 123 political prisoners, including Sergei Tikhanovsky, the opposition leader who spent five years in jail.
Coale credits the diplomatic breakthrough to his long dinners of vodka, black bread and potato pancake with Lukashenko. During the meals, Coale urged Lukashenko not to sit at the “loser table” of world affairs with Venezuela, Iran and North Korea, and offered to move him to the “cool guy table” with the US.
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He said he could give sanctions relief to Belarus, a country that now hosts Oreshnik advanced nuclear weapons on behalf of the Kremlin and was used by Putin as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine.
“I don’t care who we talk to,” Coale said, summarising Trump’s theory of diplomacy.
In exchange for the release of prisoners, the Trump administration has lifted sanctions on Belarussian potash and allowed Boeing to supply parts to Belavia, the state airline.
“This really is Trumpesque,” Coale said. “The hell with who you’re talking to, if this person can deliver what you want, that’s all that counts.”