"Make $20 Billion in 20 Minutes": How This Man Turned Meeting Trump into a Business

The Trump administration is merging diplomacy and deal-making in an unprecedented way. At the core of this system operates a man named Paolo Zampolli—who claims to have "closed a $20 billion deal with Uzbekistan in 20 minutes," accompanied U.S. Vice President Vance on a trip to Hungary to promote nuclear energy deals, and defines himself as "Boeing's second-largest global salesman." As a special diplomatic envoy for the United States, Zampolli has recently appeared frequently at diplomatic events in Europe and the Middle East, sometimes alongside senior U.S. officials. According to Britain's Financial Times, he stated his operating logic plainly: "Whenever people see me, they all want one thing—access to the president. I tell them: 'Buy Boeing.' Want to make the president happy? Buy Boeing. It's the simplest thing in the world." These words precisely reveal the underlying logic of current U.S. "transactional diplomacy." To some extent, Zampolli has commodified "access to Trump" itself—the outside world widely believes that purchasing Boeing products is an effective way to gain White House access, turning his personal influence into a quantifiable business. Zampolli's rise has not been without controversy. According to The New York Times, he sought assistance from U.S. immigration authorities regarding a custody dispute with his former partner, Brazilian woman Amanda Ungaro, who was ultimately deported; outsiders questioned whether he had leveraged his relationship with the White House. Zampolli denied the allegations, calling them false and politically motivated. From Socialite to Presidential Envoy Zampolli's resume is quite legendary. In the late 1990s, he was a well-known figure in New York's social circle and modeling industry, renowned for his extensive connections. Vanity Fair magazine once devoted approximately 3,000 words in 2001 to report on his extraordinary influence in fashion and social circles. His most widely recognized identity is claiming to have introduced the then-young Slovenian model Melania Knauss (now the First Lady of the United States) to Trump in 1998. This claim has recently drawn renewed attention—Melania held an impromptu press conference denying any connection to Jeffrey Epstein and stating that Epstein had nothing to do with how she met her husband. Subsequently, Ungaro posted on the social media platform X implying a link between Melania and Epstein, but deleted it shortly after. Regarding this, Zampolli downplayed the matter, stating that Epstein avoided him while alive: "Epstein never invited me to the island." "$20 Billion" Record Questioned; Officials Say Trump Personally Completed the Deal The achievement Zampolli mentions most frequently is the Boeing aircraft deal with Uzbekistan. He recounts it dramatically: the counterpart initially proposed a $4 billion purchase intention, which he deemed too low and demanded be raised to $50 billion, ultimately "closing a $20 billion agreement within 20 minutes." However, official records differ significantly. U.S. State Department officials stated that President Trump himself personally negotiated the deal during a phone call with Uzbek President Mirziyoyev on September 5, 2025, in which Uzbekistan Airlines ordered 22 Dreamliners, with a contract value exceeding $8 billion. "The president independently completed this Boeing transaction," the official emphasized. "Buy Boeing" Is Diplomacy: The Trump Administration's New Business Model Zampolli's model reveals a significant characteristic of the Trump administration's diplomatic operations: loyalists are deployed as intermediaries, functioning within a system that highly mixes "access channels, personal networks, and commercial transactions." Under this framework, several long-standing boundaries in traditional U.S. diplomacy are blurring: the boundary between statecraft and salesmanship, between public office and private relationship networks, and between diplomatic mediation and commercial negotiations. Zampolli himself is open about this. He stated that he receives instructions from the White House, the Department of Commerce, and the "Department of War" (i.e., the Department of Defense), and all actions aim to advance the "America First" agenda. His diplomatic schedule is mostly publicly recorded on his Instagram homepage, presented as a series of meetings, handshakes, and signing ceremonies. In his view, the essence of diplomacy is extremely simple—"Buy American." If more specific guidance is needed, then: Go buy Boeing.