Trump family’s newest partners: Middle Eastern governments
WASHINGTON — When former President Donald Trump returned briefly two weeks ago to his office at Trump Tower in New York, he was joined by his son Eric and the top executive of a Saudi Arabian real estate company to sign a deal that is creating new conflict-ofinterest questions for his just-launched presidential campaign.
The deal is with a Saudi real estate company that intends to build a Trumpbranded hotel, villas and a golf course as part of a $4 billion project in Oman. The agreement continues a practice that had been popular for the Trump family business until he was elected president — selling branding rights to an overseas project in exchange for a generous licensing fee.
But what makes this project unusual is that by teaming up with the Saudi company, Mr. Trump is also becoming part of a project backed by the government of Oman itself.
The deal leaves Mr. Trump, as a former president hoping to win the White House again, effectively with a foreign government partner that has complex relations with the United States, including its role in trying to end the war in Yemen and other foreign policy agenda items for Washington.
The deal Mr. Trump signed was with Dar Al Arkan, the Saudi-based real estate company that is leading the project in collaboration with the government of Oman, which owns the land. It is the second deal signed recently between Mr. Trump and his family that has direct financial ties to a Middle East government.
The Trump Organization also hosted Saudi-government-backed LIV Golf tournamentsat family-owned golf clubs in New Jersey and Florida. The Saudi government’s $620 billion Public Investment Fund has financed the LIV Golf effort, which then paid venues like Trump National Doral in Miami and Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey to hosttournaments this year.
The Trump administration, including Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, had close ties with Saudi Arabia during Mr. Trump’s tenure in the White House. Mr. Kushner has also received financial support
from the Saudi government, a $2 billion investment in his new private equity firm, Affinity Partners.
Before being elected president, Mr. Trump and his family had signed deals to license the Trump name in locations including Indonesia, Turkey, the Philippines, Dubai, India, Panama and Canada, and it owns golf resorts in Scotland andIreland.
Elsewhere, the Trump Organization’s foreign deals generally did not directly involve a financial role by a foreign government, or at least any public acknowledgment of direct foreign government financing or a major land contribution, according to an examination of the transactions by The New York Times.
During Mr. Trump’s time in the White House, Trump International Hotel in Washington was frequently a destination
for foreign government officials, including delegations in town for planned meetings with Mr. Trump. The governments of Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China each spent money at the hotel, according to documents that his former accounting firm turned over to Congress.
The Trump Organization has asserted that it paid all profits from these hotel stays to the Treasury Department through annual voluntary payments.
But this new deal — in which the Trump Organization benefits from land or financial capital provided by foreign governments — only elevates the potential for a conflict of interest to emerge, ethics lawyers said.
“This is yet another
emerge, ethics lawyers said.
“This is yet another example of Trump getting a personal financial benefit in exchange for past or future political power,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “The Saudis and Oman government may believe that giving Trump this licensing deal will benefit them in the future, should Trump become president again. This deal could be a way to ensure that they will be in Trump’s good graces.”
The Aida project is slated to be built outside the Oman capital city of Muscat, on a series of hills overlooking the Arabian Sea on land controlled by the Omani Company for Development and Tourism, an Oman-government-owned tourism agency.
The project is part of what the government there is calling Oman Vision 2040 to try to diversify the small nation’s economy by building hotels and golf courses and other tourist attractions. Officials in Oman did not respond to a request for comment on the project, nor did representatives for Dar Al Arkan, which is one of Saudi Arabia’s largest real estate companies.
Relations between the United States and Oman were not nearly as warm during Mr. Trump’s tenure as they were with Saudi Arabia. Oman declined to sign the agreement, called the Abraham Accords, that normalized relations between other Middle East nations and Israel.
Executives at Riyadhbased Dar Al Arkan sent out a news confirming the deal with the Trump Organization for the new project in Oman, while also distributing photos of Donald and EricTrump at Trump Tower in New York with executives from Dar Al Arkan.
Ziad El Chaar, CEO of Dar Al Arkan Global, used to work at Damac Properties, the Trump family’s partner in Dubai, where the family has licensed its name to what is known as Trump International Golf Club Dubai and Trump Estates at DAMAC Hills, a gated community adjacentto the fairways.
“We are confident the relationship with Trump will further enhance the beauty of Aida and attract investors from around the world looking to be part of an exceptional project,” Mr. El Chaar said in the statement released Nov. 20.
Eric Trump, in a statement, said the family company did not believe the new deal represented a conflict, and since the time his father was in office, it has worked to avoid any such conflicts. “We are excited to expand our golf and hotel portfolio in this incredible location,” he said. “It is going to be an exceptional project.”