Trump's Middle East visit comes as his family deepens its business,
crypto ties in the region
[May 15, 2025]
By WILL WEISSERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just the “gesture” of a $400 million luxury
plane that President Donald Trump says he’s smart to accept from Qatar.
Or that he effectively auctioned off the first destination on his first
major foreign trip, heading to Saudi Arabia because the kingdom was
ready to make big investments in U.S. companies.
It’s not even that the Trump family has fast-growing business ties in
the Middle East that run deep and offer the potential of vast profits.
Instead, it’s the idea that the combination of these things and more —
deals that show the close ties between a family whose patriarch oversees
the U.S. government and a region whose leaders are fond of currying
favor through money and lavish gifts — could cause the United States to
show preferential treatment to Middle Eastern leaders when it comes to
American affairs of state.
Before Trump began his visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates, his sons Eric and Donald Jr. had already traveled the Middle
East extensively in recent weeks. They were drumming up business for The
Trump Organization, which they are running in their father's stead while
he's in the White House.
Eric Trump announced plans for an 80-story Trump Tower in Dubai, the
UAE’s largest city. He also attended a recent cryptocurrency conference
there with Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto company,
World Liberty Financial, and son of Trump's do-everything envoy to the
Mideast, Steve Witkoff.
“We are proud to expand our presence in the region,” Eric Trump said
last month in announcing that Trump Tower Dubai was set to start
construction this fall.
The presidential visit to the region, as his children work the same part
of the world for the family's moneymaking opportunities, puts a
spotlight on Trump's willingness to embrace foreign dealmaking while in
the White House, even in the face of growing concerns that doing so
could tempt him to shape U.S. foreign policy in ways that benefit his
family's bottom line.
Nowhere is the potential overlap more prevalent than in the Middle
East
The Trump family's business interests in the region include a new deal
to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, partnering with Qatari Diar, a
real estate company backed by that country's sovereign wealth fund. The
family is also leasing its brand to two new real estate projects in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, in partnership with Dar Global, a
London-based luxury real estate developer and subsidiary of private
Saudi real estate firm Al Arkan.
The Trump Organization has similarly partnered with Dar Global on a
Trump Tower set to be built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and an upcoming
Trump International Hotel and luxury golf development in neighboring
Oman.
During the crypto conference, a state-backed investment company in Abu
Dhabi announced it had chosen USD, World Liberty Financial's stablecoin,
to back a $2 billion investment in Binance, the world's largest
cryptocurrency exchange. Critics say that allows Trump family-aligned
interests to essentially take a cut of each dollar invested.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said when asked by reporters
about the transaction on Wednesday.
Then there's the Saudi government-backed LIV Golf, which has forged
close business relationships with the president and hosted tournaments
at Trump’s Doral resort in South Florida.
“Given the extensive ties between LIV Golf and the PIF, or between Trump
enterprises more generally and the Gulf, I’d say there’s a pretty
glaring conflict of interest here," said Jon Hoffman, a research fellow
in defense and foreign policy at the libertarian think tank the Cato
Institute. He was referring to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund,
which has invested heavily in everything from global sports giants to
video game maker Nintendo with the aim of diversifying the kingdom’s
economy beyond oil.
Trump said he did not talk about LIV Golf during his visit in Saudi
Arabia.
The president announced in January a $20 billion investment for U.S.
data centers promised by DAMAC Properties, an Emirati company led by
billionaire Dubai developer Hussain Sajwani. Trump bills that as
benefiting the country's technological and economic standing rather than
his family business. But Sajwani was a close business partner of Trump
and his family since long before the 2016 election.
White House bristles at conflict of interest concerns
Asked before he left for the Middle East if Trump might use the trip to
meet with people tied to his family’s business, White House press
secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “ridiculous” to “suggest that
President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”
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President Donald Trump is greeted by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin
Hamad Al Thani as he arrives on Air Force One at Hamad International
Airport in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex
Brandon)
“The president is abiding by all conflict of interest laws,” she
said.
Administration officials have brushed off such concerns about the
president's policy decisions bleeding into the business interests of
his family by noting that Trump's assets are in a trust managed by
his children. A voluntary ethics agreement released by The Trump
Organization also bars the firm from striking deals directly with
foreign governments.
But that same agreement still allows deals with private companies
abroad. In Trump’s first term, the organization released an ethics
pact prohibiting deals with both foreign governments and foreign
companies.
The president, according to the second-term ethics agreement, isn't
involved in any day-to-day decision-making for the family business.
But his political and corporate brands remain inextricably linked.
“The president is a successful businessman,” Leavitt said, "and I
think, frankly, that it’s one of the many reasons that people
reelected him back to this office.”
Timothy P. Carney, senior fellow at the conservative American
Enterprise Institute, said he doesn’t want to see U.S. foreign
policy being affected by Trump’s feelings about how other countries
have treated his family’s business.
“Even if he’s not running the company, he profits when the company
does well,” Carney said. “When he leaves the White House, the
company is worth more, his personal wealth goes up.”
Promises of US investment shaped Trump's trip
His family business aside, the president wasn't shy about saying
he'd shape the itinerary of his first extended overseas trip on quid
pro quo.
Trump's first stop was Saudi Arabia, just as during his first term.
He picked the destination after he said the kingdom had pledged to
spend $1 trillion on U.S. companies over four years. The White House
has since announced that the actual figure is $600 billion. How much
of that will actually be new investment — or come to fruition —
remains to be seen.
The president is also headed to the UAE, which has pledged $1.4
trillion in U.S. investments over the next 10 years, and Boeing and
GE Aerospace announced a $96 billion deal while he was in Qatar on
Wednesday that will see that country's state-owned airline acquire
up to 210 American-made Boeing aircraft.
Trump, meanwhile, says accepting the gift of a Boeing 747 from the
ruling family is a no-brainer, dismissing security and ethical
concerns raised by Democrats and even some conservatives.
Trump's Middle East business ties predate his presidencies
Trump's first commercial foray in the Middle East came in 2005,
during just his second year of starring on “The Apprentice.” A Trump
Tower Dubai project was envisioned as a tulip-shaped hotel to be
perched on the city's manmade island shaped like a palm tree.
It never materialized.
Instead, February 2017 saw the announced opening of Trump
International Golf Club Dubai, with Sajwani's DAMAC Properties. Just
a month earlier, Trump had said that Sajwani had tried to make a $2
billion deal with him, “And I turned it down."
“I didn’t have to turn it down, because as you know, I have a
no-conflict situation because I'm president,” Trump said then.
This January, there was a beaming Sajwani standing triumphantly by
Trump's side at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, to announce
DAMAC's investment in U.S. data centers.
“It’s been amazing news for me and my family when he was elected in
November,” Sajwani said. “For the last four years, we’ve been
waiting for this moment.”
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