As Israeli airstrikes continue to pound Beirut and Donald Trump packs his diplomatic team with Middle East hawks, many Lebanese are pinning their hopes for peace in one man: car tycoon Massad Boulos.
As Mr. Trump’s in-laws, no other Lebanese speaks as closely as the president-elect, and no one seems better suited to win Mr. Trump’s ear.
Boulos, whose son Michael is married to Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, has spent much of the past year trying to drum up support for Trump among Arab Americans in the battleground state of Michigan. Clear anger over the Biden administration’s record in the Middle East helped tip the state toward President Trump.
Many in Lebanon are now hoping that Boulos’ powers of persuasion will help end the conflict that has ravaged the small Mediterranean country for the past 13 months.
“The fact that he’s Lebanese is definitely something we want.” [what is best for] This could be positive for the country’s long-term interests,” one Lebanese official told the Financial Times. “But we’ll have to wait and see.”
Mr. Trump has often appointed family members and in-laws to key positions in his campaign and the White House. Mr. Boulos would become the latest acolyte to be elevated into Mr. Trump’s political orbit.
For the past 10 days, Lebanese media has enthusiastically reported that Mr. Boulos would take up an official position as special envoy to Lebanon within the Trump administration and help negotiate a ceasefire. Boulos denied the reports, telling Reuters they were “completely wrong.”
Lebanese officials said Boulos had no contact with the government in an official capacity or on behalf of President Trump. But in the past 10 days, he has also met in Washington with Lebanese Economy Minister Amin Salam and Sami Gemayel, head of the Christian Kataeb party, which fiercely opposes Hezbollah.
The ministry said Boulos and Salam discussed “several Lebanese issues” including the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. Boulos reportedly said that “Donald Trump will keep his promise of a ceasefire” and stressed the need to “establish a lasting peace” in the region. . . economic plan” and a framework to address the Palestinian issue.
According to Arab diplomats, Boulos also met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September to open channels of communication between the Palestinian president and the Trump campaign.
Boulos declined the FT’s request for an interview, saying only that he would speak “soon” and declining to comment on what role he might play in the government.
Boulos and Donald Trump. Boulos said reports that he would take an official position in the president-elect’s administration were “completely false” © Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Boulos first entered Trump’s orbit in 2019, when Michael was dating Tiffany Trump and took him to a White House Christmas party.
Mr. Boulos, who comes from a Christian family from Kfar Akka in the Koura region of northern Lebanon, moved to Texas as a teenager to attend the University of Houston, where he said he began dabbling in Republican politics.
After graduating from university, he joined his family’s automobile company in Nigeria. His family belongs to a lineage of influential Lebanese dynasties with businesses in Lebanon, many of whom have lived in Nigeria for generations, enjoying influence and having ties to the country’s top political leaders. Enjoys contact.
Mr. Boulos became the chief executive officer of his parents-in-law’s company, Score Motors Nigeria. The company was founded in 1926 and sells and distributes buses and trucks from the German group MAN in the West African country. He also runs a company of the same name, Boulos Enterprises, which is based in Nigeria and deals in the sale and assembly of motorcycles, three-wheelers and power bikes.
Boulos enjoys almost complete monopoly in the Nigerian market and is the sole importer and distributor of Japanese Suzuki cars and Chinese Kinjo motorcycles. This is a privileged position enjoyed in a country of over 200 million people, as many Nigerians get around on two wheels. Boulos also has several US-based companies.
His wife, Salah Fadl Boulos, is the daughter of a wealthy Lebanese tycoon, also of African descent, with businesses in West and Central Africa, as well as Europe and Lebanon. She and Boulos have four children: Fares, Michael, Orianne, and Sophie.
The family is religious, and Boulos is said to have promoted traditional family values along with President Trump’s pledge to end wars in the Middle East to appeal to Arab-American voters.
Boulos’ proximity to political power comes as little surprise to those in his hometown, where his family has long been active in local politics. His father was the mayor of Kfar Akka until his death in 2011, and his great-uncle was a member of parliament and a minister. Mr. Boulos himself twice tried unsuccessfully to run for the Lebanese parliament.
“Politics are in turmoil,” Boulos’ brother Philippe, a city councilor, told the Lebanese daily L’Orient le Jour. [Massad’s] vein”.
Boulos said he is not affiliated with any Lebanese political party. However, he is known for his close ties to Lebanon’s entire Christian political class, including Suleiman Frangieh, an influential Christian politician whom Hezbollah is promoting as its candidate for the vacant presidential seat.
Michael Boulos and his wife Tiffany Trump at this year’s Republican National Convention © Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
In an interview with The Associated Press in June, Mr. Boulos described himself as a friend of Mr. Frangier, the Lebanese Marada movement leader who has close ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. President al-Assad’s leadership has been supported by Iran and Russia during the civil war.
There are growing hopes in Lebanon that Lebanese insiders could help moderate key figures in President Trump’s foreign policy camp. Among them are ardent supporters of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, such as Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense. Steve Witkoff, who is scheduled to become special envoy for the Middle East.
Witkoff is expected to take over efforts previously led by Biden adviser Amos Hochstein to mediate an end to the conflict.
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Outgoing U.S. officials renewed their efforts to end the conflict, with a draft of the amendment handed to Lebanese negotiators last week. However, Lebanese officials tempered their hopes for a breakthrough because Hochstein’s previous proposal contained conditions unacceptable to the Lebanese state.
Since the election, reporters have been to Mr. Boulos’ mother’s home in Kfar Akka to get a glimpse of the man seen as having the potential to shake up Trump’s foreign policy.
Marie-Thérèse Boulos declined interview requests from journalists, but she and other well-wishers welcomed them with coffee and Arabic pastries, thanking them for their prayers that helped elect Donald Trump. I am doing it.
“I’m tired of this war,” said Anthony Saad, a cashier at a supermarket near the Boulos family’s home. “He is a son of this country. He should use his influence to tell President Trump to stop now.”
