Trump's Middle East visit comes as his family deepens business, crypto ties in region

Washington | It's not just the “gesture” of a USD 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 US 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 US government and a region whose leaders are fond of currying favour 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 travelled the Middle East extensively in recent weeks. They were drumming up business for The Trump Organisation, which they are running in their father's stead while he's in the White House.

Eric Trump announced plans for an 80-storey 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 US 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 Organisation 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 neighbouring 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 USD 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 defence 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 USD 20 billion investment for US data centres 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.”

“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 Organisation 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 organisation 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.”

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 USD 1 trillion on US companies over four years. The White House has since announced that the actual figure is USD 600 billion. How much of that will actually be new investment — or come to fruition — remains to be seen.

The president is also stopping in the UAE, which has pledged USD 1.4 trillion in US investments over the next 10 years, and in Qatar, where Trump 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 materialised.

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 USD 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 US data centres.

“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.”