The president has already made hundreds of millions abroad, much of it stemming from a single Middle Eastern nation. His most lucrative foreign deal may be about to begin.On January 11, 2017, nine days before he became president the first time, Donald Trump revealed how he planned to handle his multibillion-dollar business while in the White House. He would not sell his assets. Nor would he give them to his heirs. Nor create a blind trust, nor empower an independent executive. But there was one line he promised to never cross—there would be no new foreign business deals. “Over the weekend,” the president-elect explained at a press conference inside Trump Tower, “I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai—a number of deals. And I turned it down.”
Eight years later, the United Arab Emirates, home to the metropolises of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has become a hub for the Trump Organization’s international expansion. With first sons Don Jr. and Eric serving as emissaries, the president and his family have entered into at least nine agreements with ties to the gulf nation—some involving government entities in the country, many stemming from business relationships developed there. Together, the ventures, which include five licensing agreements and three cryptocurrency deals, will provide an estimated $500 million in 2025—and about $50 million annually for years into the future.
More business is coming. The Trump family has been working on a yet-to-be-announced project in Abu Dhabi, which new filings suggest could be in the city’s Al Raha Beach neighborhood. Even more intriguing: The president’s offspring are plotting novel ways to use crypto mania to squeeze more money from their real-estate assets.
Eric Trump, who runs the day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization, can’t stop praising the country. “The UAE is the developers’ greatest dream because they never say ‘no’ to anything,” he told a room full of people in Abu Dhabi last year. “In fact, they always tell you to kind of push the limits. And there’s no place that has grown faster. There’s no place that has been more fun to work in than the UAE. I mean, if you want to build it, if you can dream it up, they allow you to do it.”
Certainly if your last name is Trump. “[Gulf leaders] know how to deal with this American president,” says a former diplomat with experience in the region. “They learned it the first time around, but he was himself constrained in how blatantly he could solicit money. He's unconstrained now.”
America’s most famous real estate clan first entered the Middle East about 20 years ago, starting in—where else?— the United Arab Emirates. At the time, Dubai was on a spending spree, which included constructing islands in the sea, just off its downtown, in the shape of the world map and a palm tree. To sell such projects, leaders of a government-affiliated firm named Nakheel had a luncheon in 2004 at the “21” Club in New York with 75 potential investors, Donald Trump among them. “They are filling up the ocean—amazing!” he marveled. By 2008, Trump had a licensing deal with Nakheel, helmed by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, a well-connected businessman whose relationships in the United States included Jeffrey Epstein.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower was supposed to be the tallest building on the palm-tree-shaped island, with 50,000 square feet of retail space, 378 hotel rooms and 399 apartments—one of which Trump claimed he reserved for himself. Units went on sale to the public in June 2008. That proved to be terrible timing. The financial crisis crushed Dubai’s real estate market, and Trump’s partner reportedly called off the deal in 2011.
That same year, however, a developer named Hussain Sajwani started working on a 42-million-square-foot project outside of Dubai called Damac Hills. One of his Sajwani’s deputies, Ziad El Chaar, connected with the Trump family and put together a licensing deal for a golf club. In May 2014, El Chaar picked up Trump at a cargo-heavy airport named Al Maktoum International, the only landing pad able to accommodate Trump’s plane at the time. Inside the car, Trump asked about U.S. policies in the Middle East, leaving El Chaar wondering whether the developer might have political ambitions.
Sure enough, two-and-a-half years later, Trump became the 45th president of the United States. Sajwani, El Chaar’s boss, celebrated the occasion inside Washington D.C.’s Trump International Hotel. First sons Eric and Don Jr. showed up in Dubai for the official opening of the Trump International Golf Club a month later. With Trump closing himself off to new foreign deals, the licensing business quieted down as his presidency progressed. The January 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol, conducted two weeks before Trump reentered the private sector, did nothing to reinvigorate his brand.
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