It’s the election year in the United States, the world’s largest democracy. The rematch between Republican Donald Trump and his Democrat (incumbent US President) Joe Biden is adding more excitement to the contest. While Biden is playing his “Bidenomics,” a set of decisive economic reforms, as a key card to seek another five-year term, Trump, staying true to his no-holds-bar, street fighter approach, is going toe-to-toe against his Democrat rival.
However, in this article, International Finance will talk about a contentious topic: Trump’s foreign business commitments and the prospects of the Republican Party facing conflicts of interest if he becomes the US President again.
Donald Trump had declared that his business interests would be held in a trust managed by his sons Don and Eric during his presidency from 2017 to 2021. He further declared that no new international agreements would be made while he was president.
But a review of his tax returns from 2023 by the non-profit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) revealed that during his presidency, Trump received at least $9.6 million from the Gulf region.
“This indicates that during his administration, Donald Trump earned at least six times his official presidential salary in side income from the Middle East alone,” the study commented further, as reported by The National News.
Crew’s analysis further revealed that although public reporting only highlights the most prominent cases of profiteering, the overall amount could be significantly higher.
“After Trump was elected president, he made the unprecedented decision not to divest from his business interests, and remained very much involved in the Trump Organisation, creating an endless number of conflicts of interests by blurring the lines between the government and his businesses,” the report noted further.
“In theory, I can be president of the United States and run my business 100%,” The Republican told the New York Times in 2016.
All senior federal officials, with the exception of members of Congress, federal judges, and the president and vice president, must disclose their financial holdings and abstain from any government business in which they, their families, or close associates have a financial interest, in accordance with the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. Trump made the best use of the “Exception” clause, as he raked in tens of millions from international business interests during his stint as the 45th United States President.
Presidents are prohibited by the United States Congress from accepting benefits from foreign governments or their affiliates under what is known as the Foreign Emoluments Clause, according to Kate Belinski, a government ethics attorney at Ballard Spahr in Washington.
“It is clear that Trump’s continued involvement in his business interests violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause, but the problem is enforcement. The US Supreme Court had the opportunity to weigh in, but wouldn’t even take the case,” Belinski said.
Policy impact
Trump’s foreign holdings caused him more political difficulties back home, where his opponents claimed that, because of his connections, he was favouring Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Russia, says Ryan Bohl, a senior Mena (Middle East and North Africa) analyst at risk intelligence platform Rane Network.
On a policy level, Bohl explained they still have to contend with deeply ingrained strategic interests, even though that undoubtedly had an impact on the way he would occasionally speak about these nations, frequently complimenting them and their leadership.
“Russia, for example, was able to secure a Trump meeting but could not get the US to end arms support for Ukraine; Saudi Arabia got high-profile meetings with Trump but, nevertheless, received substantial criticism over its Qatari and Yemeni policies; and Turkey, despite Trump business interests there, had a brief currency crisis because Trump threatened to tariff them in August 2018 over the arrest of an American pastor,” Bohl remarked further.
Donald Trump says he will use his “bully pulpit” to promote his investment destinations, but he finds it difficult to go beyond that in terms of policy.
Talking about Trump’s business commitments in Gulf, His company, in March 2024, announced a major deal with a Saudi developer, further strengthening his connections to the Kingdom.
The Trump Organisation and Dar Global unveiled the planned Trump International Villas, a luxury residential development. The villas will be located in Dar Global’s Aida coastal development east of Muscat, along the Gulf of Oman. The project is worth $200 million. The Trump Organisation is additionally developing a golf club in Aida. The villas will be located within the golf complex.
Gulf ties
Capital Economics’ James Swanston, a Mena economist, sees Washington having improved ties with the Gulf nations (if Trump wins), regardless of Trump’s personal business commitments in the region.
During his campaign, Trump promised to remove the US from the 2016 nuclear agreement that was reached between Iran and the other world powers. He says he succeeded in doing so in 2018 and then reinstated the sanctions.
“At the same time, until recently, Iran and the Gulf had a strong regional rivalry that had seen conflict played out in proxy wars such as that in Yemen. Even before that, protests in the Arab Spring in Bahrain were blamed on Iranian influence. On top of this in 2019, the Iranian-backed Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facility,” Swanston stated further.
To put it briefly, the relationship was bolstered by a mutual opposition to Iran held by Washington and the Gulf.
“That said, the influence that President Trump could have in relations may be more diffused than previously, given the growing ties economically and politically between the Gulf states and China, which has been highlighted [in] Saudi Arabia and the UAE being invited into the BRICS group, and Saudi Arabia also [being] invited to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation,” Swanston noted further.
However, Trump asserts that his experience in international real estate precedes his political career. According to Century Financial’s chief investment officer Vijay Valecha, the following instances illustrate this.
Trump’s attitude to real estate changed in the 1990s after he experienced financial setbacks and began to prioritise licensing agreements over outright investments. According to Valecha, these agreements provide developers with funding for projects, with the Trump Organisation acting as the property manager and providing branding and oversight.
Forbes estimated Trump’s net worth to be $6.04 billion, with undisclosed holdings in the Middle East. This includes the $4.6 billion Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of social media platform Truth Social, clubs and resorts valued at $810 million, cash and liquid assets estimated at $410 million, as well as other assets worth $100 million, according to Forbes. His real estate portfolio is valued at $1.1 billion.
Investments in UAE, Oman & Turkey
Trump made his first attempt to pursue business opportunities in the UAE in 2005, when the Trump Organisation signed a joint venture with developer Nakheel for a hotel and tower on Palm Jumeirah that was never built.
Two golf-related projects in Dubai’s Damac Hills neighbourhood, formerly known as Akoya by Damac, are a partnership between the Trump Organisation and developer Damac.
In May 2013, Damac revealed that it had struck a deal with the Trump Organisation when Trump and his daughter Ivanka attended a launch event in Dubai to announce the construction of a Trump International Golf Club in the community.
In 2017, while serving as president, Trump claimed to have rejected a $2 billion offer to prolong the developer’s collaboration with the Trump Organisation from Hussain Sajwani, the billionaire founder of Damac.
According to financial disclosure filings cited by the Washington Post in 2017, the developer has paid Mr. Trump’s private company up to $10 million for branding rights since the beginning of 2015.
Moreover, in order to create a resort in Muscat that will have residential villas, a hotel, and a golf course, Saudi real estate developer Dar Al Arkan partnered with the Trump Organisation.
The Trump Resort will be built at Aida, a 100-metre-tall hilltop community that is next to the ocean, according to Dar Al Arkan. The $4 billion mixed-use Aida project is being developed in the sultanate’s capital by Dar Al Arkan and the Oman Tourism Development Company.
According to Dar Al Arkan’s global arm, the Trump Signature Villas are an enclave of homes within Trump International Golf Club Oman that come with “elite membership” of the golf club and a Trump-branded golf cart, Dar Global.
According to interviews and a review of hundreds of pages of financial documents related to the Oman project by The New York Times, the Trump Organisation has already benefited at least $5 million from the agreement.
The Trump Organisation has agreed to manage the Trump-branded hotel, golf course, and golf club for up to 30 years in exchange for other revenue; however, it will not contribute any funds to the development.
During an Oman visit in 2023, Eric Trump, the son of the former president and project manager for the Trump Organisation, referred to the project as “the Hamptons of the Middle East.” The Trump family has engaged in prior foreign transactions.
Furthermore, the Trump family has deep business connections in Turkey, and Trump hinted at a potential conflict of interest in a 2015 interview with Breitbart News.
“I have a little conflict of interest because I have a major, major building in Istanbul. It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers – two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two,” Trump said at the time.
As a component of the Trump Organisation, Trump Towers Istanbul continues to bring in money for Trump. The New York Times reported in 2019 that, in accordance with Trump’s financial disclosure forms, the high-rises pay the Trump Organisation a licensing fee, which ranged from $5 million to $10 million annually in the first years after it opened to $100,000 to $1 million annually in more recent years. The building is owned by Turkish businessman Aydin Dogan. Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, Dogan’s son-in-law, is also very close to the Trumps.
Does it matter?
The likelihood that Trump’s international business interests will affect American voters seems low, notwithstanding all these possible conflicts of interest.
Experts guessed his opponents would use this as a political talking point. Almost all registered voters support or lean toward voting for Trump, while 48% support or lean toward voting for Joe Biden, according to a new Pew Research Centre survey, despite the election being more than six months away.