Trump’s Family Is Rapidly Striking Business Deals in the Mideast

Golf resorts, crypto deals and financial investments blur line between private business and public policy

By Eliot Brown and Stephen Kalin. WSJ. 

When President Trump tours the Middle East this week, he will be looking to secure investments in the U.S. from the world’s richest petrostates. His family businesses and close associates already have been striking deals in the region at a rapid clip.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the three countries on the president’s itinerary, stand out for their embrace of Trump Inc.

In the past year, Trump branded residential towers have been launched in Dubai and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and a developer in April unveiled a Trump luxury golf resort at a state-owned project in Qatar at an event featuring Eric Trump and a Qatari minister.

A U.A.E. state and royal family fund earlier this month used $2 billion of a new cryptostable coin issued by Trump’s World Liberty Financial to invest in a crypto exchange. The Trump administration is in talks with the Qatari government about accepting a plane that would serve as a temporary replacement for the U.S.’s Air Force One jets, people familiar with the matter have said.

Royal largess
Sovereign or royal funds from all three states have committed more than $3.5 billion to a private-equity fund run by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.

In addition, state-backed funds from Qatar and the U.A.E. were major investors in a $6 billion fundraising round for Trump adviser Elon Musk's xAI. In February, Dubai tapped his Boring Company to build an 11-mile tunnel network.

Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saud, a nephew of the king, is an investor in xAI.

This open commingling of geopolitics and personal interest breaks with longstanding American norms.

"The national interest has seemingly merged with the president's interests in some ways," said David Schenker, who was the State Department's top Middle East official during Trump's first term. A fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he said dealmaking in the Gulf, including with the president's family and associates, is part of a new strategic approach on the part of these countries.

Ahead of the trip, Trump's administration has sought to broker a peace agreement in Gaza, cut a new nuclear deal with Iran and halt attacks by Yemen's Houthis on Red Sea shipping - all important to the Arab states on the Gulf.

At the same time, Trump's team has been in talks with Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar on deals they desire in exchange for pledges of Gulf investment in the U.S.

Saudi Arabia has committed a $600 billion package and the U.A.E. has pledged to inject $1.4 trillion into the U.S. over the next decade. The administration is looking this week to announce major Gulf investments in U.S. companies and projects, according to people familiar with the matter.

The fusion of the policy talks and deals that benefit the president's family and advisers has drawn criticism from Democrats and government-account-ability groups.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Friday that it is "ridiculous" to suggest "that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit," and that Americans trust "he acts in the best interest of our country."

In Trump's first term, his Trump Organization pledged not to do foreign deals. This time, it has limited the vow to transactions directly with foreign governments. The Trump-owned company is managed by his children. The president's ethics plan calls for the company to give the U.S. government any profits from "foreign government patronage" at its hotels and similar business, as it did in his first term. Congressional Democrats criticized these payments as only a small portion of the financial benefits his companies received from foreign govern-ments.

It couldn't be determined what limits, if any, there are on deals by World Liberty Financial. The cryptocurrency company, which has sold Trump memecoin tokens, is controlled by an entity with Trump family ownership. Eric Trump sits on that entity's board. World Liberty's website calls the president its "Chief Crypto Advocate." MGX, a fund run by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of the U.A.E. president, used $2 billion of World Liberty's new stablecoin - a cryptocurrency that tracks the U.S. dollar to invest in cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

So long as those stablecoins are in circulation, it could a mean tens of millions of dollars in profits a year for World Liberty. A World Liberty spokesman said that it is "a private company" and that it was "proud that an investor as sophisticated as MGX" would use the stablecoin.

Among the Gulf states, the U.A.E. has done a particularly large number of Trump-tied deals. Eric Trump recently praised the rapid government approval for the Trump branded tower in Dubai, while a fund run by Sheikh Tahnoon a joined with Qatar to pump a further $1.5 billion into Kushner's fund, Affinity Partners, before the election.

Musk's family has also done business in the country: A U.A.E. ministry in March announced a partnership with his brother Kimball Musk's drone light show company.

Kushner has said he told his investors they shouldn’t expect anything in return if Trump won the election.

Until recently, the Trump Organization had little presence in the region - most notably a golf resort in Dubai. But over the past year, private developer Dar Global announced the towers in Dubai and Jeddah, the golf resort at a larger Qatari government-owned project and another hotel and golf complex in Oman, which is hosting nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran. Eric Trump has said the company is planning a tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and possibly a project in Abu Dhabi.

On course
Eric Trump launched the project last month at an event with a Qatari minister and other officials from the state-owned developer Qatari Diar. A Trump Organization spokes-woman said the company's Qatar agreement was with Dar Global, not Qatari Diar. A Qatari official said the golf-resort agreement was initially struck before Trump's election.

Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar - all hereditary monarchies - have a more lenient approach to the mixing of government and commerce. "The line between politics and business is very fuzzy, so there are a lot of overlapping activities and engagements and interests," said Robert Mogielnicki, resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington think tank.

What is different now is that such potential conflicts of interest involving the president and associates no longer seem a major concern in Washington.

And the Gulf states are happy to play ball with Trump to gain political influence in Washington, said Hasan Al-hassan, a senior fellow at International Institute for Strategic Studies.