RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The leveraging of political relationships for personal profit is ordinary in the Persian Gulf, where hereditary ruling families hold near-total power and the term “conflict of interest” carries little weight.
But the mixing of politics and profitmaking during President Donald Trump’s second term has shattered American norms, shocking scholars who study ethics and corruption. On Tuesday, Trump was meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, engaging in sensitive national security talks with a foreign leader who also oversees a major construction project, known as Diriyah, that is in talks over a potential deal with the Trump family business.
Even if that deal never comes to fruition, the Trump family’s real estate and other business interests in Saudi Arabia have flourished during his second term.
Since Trump’s election a year ago, Dar Global, a business partner of the Trump Organization that has close ties to the Saudi government, has announced at least four Trump-branded developments in Saudi Arabia. Other business deals involving Trump’s family and the Saudi government predate the election.
In response to a request for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”
Asked about conflicts of interest in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said he had “nothing to do with the family business.”
”What my family does is fine. They do business all over,” he said. “They’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia, actually, I’m sure they could do a lot.”
Among the Trump family’s business ties in the kingdom are:
— Diriyah: The Trump Organization is in negotiations that could bring a Trump-branded property to one of Saudi Arabia’s largest government-owned real estate developments. “Nothing announced yet, but soon to be,” Jerry Inzerillo, the CEO of the Saudi company leading the $63 billion project — and a longtime friend of Trump — said in an interview. The chair of Diriyah’s board is Crown Prince Mohammed himself.
— Trump-branded projects: A Trump tower is planned for the coastal city of Jeddah, and two projects have been disclosed in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. In September, Dar Global announced that it would also build a “Trump Plaza” development in Jeddah, describing it as a $1 billion project with “premium residences,” office space and a “Central Park-inspired green spine.”
— Golf: LIV Golf, a professional league backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, has hosted tournaments at the Trump National Doral Golf Club near Miami.
— Jared Kushner: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has contributed $2 billion to an investment fund run by Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who cultivated close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed during the president’s first term. In September, Kushner’s firm and the Saudi sovereign fund teamed up with another investor in an agreement to take video game publisher Electronic Arts private. That deal is valued at around $55 billion. If completed, it would be the largest leveraged buyout ever.
Dar Global and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.
Kushner, for his part, defended his deals in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview last month alongside Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East peace envoy — a real estate developer whose family also has significant business interests in the Gulf.
“What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world,” Kushner said.
Each Trump-branded real estate venture that Dar Global undertakes generates licensing fees for using the Trump name. Dar Global paid the Trump Organization $21.9 million in such fees last year, according to Trump’s financial disclosure. Some of that money goes to the president himself.
“Branding and licensing deals are a way for the Saudi government to make direct payments to the Trump family in exchange for no work or services provided,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a government ethics watchdog group that has been highly critical of the Trump administration. “These arrangements are not just ethically bankrupt — they fundamentally compromise U.S. foreign policy.”
Dar Global’s newest Trump-branded project announcement came Monday: A Trump hotel in the Maldives. The development will be “tokenized” — allowing investors to purchase fractional interests in the property via digital tokens that can be bought and sold on a blockchain platform.
That model could make it much harder to track the identities of investors in the project, opening up yet more opportunities for foreign players to try to help enrich the Trump family and its business partners.