Disclaimer: The Edu Matrix YouTube Channel and Blog are non-political. We provide updated content on the current U.S. President and his or her Administration's dealings with the Middle East and Iraq. The U.S. President's interaction with Iraq has a lot of weight on Iraq's economy and future; therefore, it relates to the adjustment of the Iraqi dinar. (The truth is, Sandy, the publisher started a mobile tax business in the San Francisco Bay Area 25 years ago. She lost a couple of clients over admitting her political affiliation. Since that time, she has refrained from politics.)
Now that President Trump is back in office, his family is profiting from his brand: At least $2 billion has flowed to Trump companies in just the last month. The ventures include real estate, a cryptocurrency, and a private club slated to open in Washington with a $500,000 membership fee. Now, Qatar may give him a new presidential airplane.
The ethical mess is obvious. Trump is both the commander in chief and a business partner of foreign governments in Serbia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The White House says his sons run his companies, so there’s no conflict. Legally, that’s true.
But Trump is still getting rich (or richer) from all of it. And that leaves incentives for the president to pay back his business partners with policy decisions designed to help them, which is how the law defines corruption. Today’s newsletter is a tour of the recent deals.
Crypto
- $TRUMP is the family’s cryptocurrency, owned by the president and run by Donald Trump Jr. It has no inherent value besides what people will pay for it; the family describes it as a collectible, like a baseball card. But every time someone purchases a coin (currently worth about $13), the family gets a share. Recently, the president offered rewards. The top 220 buyers are invited to dinner with him at his Virginia golf club next week. The top 25 buyers also get a White House tour. The winners of the contest spent at least $174 million to buy $TRUMP coins.
- Through an investment firm, the United Arab Emirates invested $2 billion in the Trump family’s new cryptocurrency outfit, World Liberty Financial. The company, whose leaders include Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., will earn tens of millions of dollars per year from the investment.
|
Real estate
|
Eric Trump in Doha, Qatar. Bassam Masoud/Reuters
|
- Qatar contributed $5.5 billion to finance a Trump-branded beachside golf and luxury villa project in the country. (We don’t know how much it contributed.) The family will earn millions in licensing and management fees.
- A real estate firm in Saudi Arabia (with close ties to the country’s government) invested $1 billion in the Trump International Hotel and Tower project in Dubai. The same company is planning to build other new Trump hotels, golf courses, and luxury towers in Saudi Arabia and Oman. These, too, are branding deals that will pay the Trumps millions of dollars for their name.
- During the Balkan wars, NATO bombed Yugoslavia’s Defense Ministry in Belgrade. Now Serbia’s president is leasing the land to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who will erect a Trump hotel on the site. Kushner’s private equity company — funded mostly by Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds — will help cover the $1 billion project.
|
Other deals
- Plane: Qatar is planning to give the president a $400 million Boeing 747 so he can use it as a temporary Air Force One. Trump says his presidential library will own the plane after his presidency.
- Members’ club: Donald Trump Jr. and other investors say they will open the Executive Branch, a private social club, in Georgetown this summer. Its members will include lobbyists, tech industry bigwigs and a sprinkling of White House officials, such as David Sacks, who is Trump’s crypto czar. The cost to join: $500,000.
- Golf: Last month, LIV, the new Saudi-backed golf league, hosted a professional tournament at Trump National Doral in Florida. The president arrived on a military helicopter to kick it off. The league is run by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund head. It paid the Trump family an undisclosed fee to host the LIV tournament. The event also drove thousands of fans to the hotel resort, selling out its rooms and restaurants.
- Hotels: During Trump’s first term, dignitaries stayed at Trump properties, and Republicans held events there. These payments, collectively in the tens of millions of dollars, have resumed. Groups like the Republican National Committee have held events at the Doral resort and the Mar-a-Lago club, for instance.
|
