Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump picks Doral for G-7 summit
White House announces meeting of world leaders to take place at president’s own property in 2020
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s golf resort in Doral will host the leaders of the world’s biggest economies for the Group of Seven summit, the president’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters on Thursday.
The event will put South Florida in the global spotlight from June 10 to 12.
The White House examined a dozen locations, concluding “by far” that Trump National Doral Miami was the best place for the event, Mulvaney said.
“It is almost like they built this facility to host this type of event,” he told reporters.
Government watchdogs have criticized holding the G-7 at a Trump property, saying it would enrich the president and amount to a conflict of interest.
Trump has touted his resort, saying it’s close to the airport, has plenty of hotel rooms and offers separate buildings for every delegation.
“With Doral we have a series of magnificent buildings, we call them bungalows, they each hold from 50 to 70 very luxurious rooms, with magnificent views, we have incredible conference rooms, incredible restaurants. It’s like it’s like such a natural,” Trump said at a news conference in August.
He has denied that profits came into play in his decisionmaking.
But Trump National Doral could use a dose of positive publicity. Trump’s financial disclosures show its 2018 income was $76 million — down from the $116 million revenue he reported for 2016.
When the United States has hosted the summit before, it has been held in Puerto Rico; Williamsburg, Virginia; Houston; Denver; Sea Island, Georgia; and Camp David, the presidential
retreat in Maryland.
Leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States will attend the gathering. Trump has said he’d like Russia to be included. The country has been excluded since 2014 for annexing Crimea.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, has said that South Florida is capable of hosting the summit, but she expressed concerns about having it at a Trump property.
“Doral has the international chops to host a G-7 event, but it is totally inappropriate for Trump to host it at his own resort. It is yet another self-enrichment scheme, and raises more ethical and Emoluments clause concerns,” Wasserman Schultz said.
The Emoluments clause generally prohibits federal officeholders from receiving gifts or payments from foreign states.
Gov. Ron DeSantis praised Trump’s decision to hold the event in Florida tweeting, “Great to hear
that Florida will host the G-7 Summit next year. Miami is a globally recognized city and we look forward to having important leaders from around the world visiting and working in our state.”
The conference is likely to cause traffic tie-ups and other disruptions, said Brian Higgins, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a security and public safety consultant with Group 77.
“It is going to tax your local public safety people,” he said. “Police departments,
fire departments are going to be deeply involved.”
G-7 summits can draw sizable demonstrations from anti-globalization protesters. France deployed more than 13,000 police officers to keep protesters in check for this year’s summit in the resort town of Biarritz, Reuters reported.
Trump has hosted world leaders in South Florida before but nothing on the scale of the G-7 summit.
Early in 2017, Trump used the Mar-a-Lago estate
in Palm Beach as a site for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader did not stay at Mar-a-Lago. Instead, the Chinese delegation was at Eau Palm Beach resort in Manalapan, about seven miles south of Mar-a-Lago, causing traffic bottlenecks and business closures.
Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2017 and 2018.