TITLE: Trump raked in big money from foreign nations. Experts fear he'd do it more if re-elected
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/02/trump-foreign-money-foreign-ethics-concerns/73969466007/
EXCERPT: Trump earned up to $160 million in total from businesses in foreign countries while he was in office, according to one recent estimate from the Washington watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). That estimate included income from at least 69 foreign trademarks granted to Trump businesses and 150 foreign officials who visited a Trump business.
Millions of those dollars flowed to the Trump Organization from corrupt and authoritarian governments such as China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, according to a January report from Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
“We have to assume that not only would we see what we saw in the four years of his presidency, but that we'd see it a lot more and probably done a lot more brazenly,” said CREW president Noah Bookbinder.
TITLE: Trump Organization signs brand deal for luxury tower in Saudi Arabia
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-organisation-signs-brand-deal-luxury-tower-saudi-arabia
EXCERPT: The Trump Organization signed a new deal to build a luxury residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, deepening the former US president’s business interests in the oil-rich Gulf region ahead of the 2024 US elections.
The deal will see the Trump Organization expand its business ties with Dar Global in Saudi Arabia, with the real estate developer using the Trump name and brand on a new luxury high-rise tower.
Eric Trump, one of the former president’s sons and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said, “We are thrilled to expand our footprint in the Middle East and bring the Trump standard of luxury to the region through our long-standing relationship with Dar Global.”
Dar Global is listed on the London Stock Exchange and manages a luxury property portfolio valued at roughly $5.9bn across the UAE, Oman, Qatar, the UK, Spain, and Bosnia.
“We are delighted to strengthen our ongoing relationship with the Trump Organization and expand our portfolio by delivering premium properties to redefine Saudi Arabia’s high-growth real estate market,” Ziad El Chaar, CEO of Dar Global, said.
The Jeddah deal marks a deepening of the relationship between the Trump Organisation and Dar Al Arkan, the parent company of Dar Global.
In 2022, the Trump Organization signed a deal to build luxury housing and a golf complex in Oman. And according to The New York Times, the Trump Organization was "brought into the deal" by Dar Al Arkan. The project is still underway, but the Trump Organization has already earned at least $5m from the agreement. The project is due to be completed in 2028.
Dar Global is a subsidiary of Dar Al Arkan, one of the largest real estate companies in Saudi Arabia, with links to the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Among other projects, Dar Al Arkan is working on a mega-development to construct 30,000 new residential units in Riyadh under a deal with the PIF.
The deal is likely to invite more scrutiny on Trump’s business practices before the US 2024 election.
A 2022 Congressional report found the foreign governments of six countries, including Saudi Arabia, spent more than $750,000 at a Trump-owned Washington hotel while lobbying his administration in 2017 and 2018.
Besides the Trump Organization’s real estate deals, the former president’s son-in-law and one-time White House advisor Jared Kushner developed a close relationship with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and other Gulf monarchs.
Six months after leaving the Trump administration, Kushner secured a $2bn investment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund in his Miami-based Affinity Partners investment firm. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar also invested $200m each, according to The New York Times.
TITLE: Saudi developer Dar Global eyes $300m US expansion
https://gulfbusiness.com/dar-global-300-million-investment-us-expansion/
EXCERPTS: Saudi property developer Dar Global plans to invest $300m in New York, Miami and Los Angeles in the coming months as it seeks partners to develop luxury homes the US.
The London-listed firm hopes to announce its latest development in the US before the year-end, said Ziad El Chaar, Dar Global’s chief executive officer.
He said Dar Global has been meeting with top real estate developers, but declined to identify the firms with whom it might partner.
“We are really focusing on closing the first project in the US before the end of the year,” El Chaar said in an interview from Dubai. He said Dar Global is ready to raise debt in and outside the US to help finance its US projects, and that its $300m investment will be in the form of equity.
Dar Global, the international arm of Saudi Arabia’s Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company, hopes to sell at least half of the homes in its US developments to non-US buyers, El Chaar said.
El Chaar said while it will be an “honour” for Dar Global to partner with the Trump Organization or the Kushner Companies, Kushner’s family real estate firm, in its US expansion, he did not think they have the “right product” as they are too focused on the US market, as opposed to the international buyer targeted by Dar Global.