The Trump Organization has signed a new deal with a Saudi real estate company to build a high-rise residential tower in the city of Jeddah, expanding the family’s close ties to the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia has become one of the few reliable sources of growth for the Trump family’s business operations, as new real estate deals in the United States have slowed or stopped since the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and since ex- -President Donald J. Trump left the White House.
This new deal is like other international projects the Trump family has signed over the past decade. She is offering the family name and brand to a well-financed developer who will build the project and sell luxury residential units, she hopes, at a high price, based on the marketability of the former president’s perceived star power. Other projects include a resort complex in Oman and Saudi Arabia-backed golf tournaments at Trump courses in recent years.
“We are pleased to strengthen our ongoing relationship with the Trump Organization and expand our portfolio by offering premium properties to redefine Saudi Arabia’s high-growth real estate market,” said Ziad El Chaar, the firm’s chief executive officer. real estate, Dar Global. in a statement on Monday.
The target market, said Mr. El Chaar, will be international investors and vacationers looking to buy real estate in Jeddah.
Dar Global, based in London, is a subsidiary of Dar Al Arkan, one of the largest private real estate companies in Saudi Arabia, with a growing portfolio of projects in luxury markets worldwide. The company typically teams up with well-known brands such as Dolce & Gabbana and Lamborghini as part of its offering to deep-pocketed shoppers.
Before Mr. Trump was elected president in 2016, his organization had planned to build a tower in the Middle East, but the deal was scrapped, along with other development plans, after Mr. Trump was elected and his family promised to don’t sign new international ones. deal while he was in the White House.
These brand deals have become a major source of new revenue for the Trump family, as the Trump Organization is typically paid several million dollars after signing the deals and then gets a cut of the sales of the luxury apartments or condos.
“We are excited to expand our footprint in the Middle East,” Eric Trump said in a statement Monday.
The Oman project includes a Trump-branded golf course and hotel, as well as Trump villas, in a development Dar Global is building on land owned by the Omani government on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of Oman. That deal alone netted the Trump family at least $5 million, even before construction began last year, financial disclosure documents show.
Last year, a team of sales agents invoked Mr. Trump’s name to help sell luxury villas priced up to $13 million, mostly targeting super-rich buyers from around the world, including from Russia, Iran and India.
Another major source of new revenue for the Trump family has been LIV Golf, the professional league backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. The fund paid the Trump family to host one of its tours at Trump National Park near Miami earlier this year.
Mr Trump’s two eldest sons – Eric and Don Jr. – had expressed disappointment with earlier pledges not to make new international deals, and it is unclear whether they will continue to seek them if Mr Trump returns to the White House.
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is also the main investor in the investment firm that Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, set up after he left his post as Mr Trump’s White House adviser.
Those deals have raised conflict-of-interest claims, especially deals that directly involve foreign government entities, as foreign players can offer the Trump family special terms in exchange for possible treatment favored by Mr. Trump if he returns to power.
“If he were to become president again, that would be a profound conflict of interest,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, which has tracked the Trump family’s business dealings while he was in office.
While Dar Al Arkan is technically a private company, traded on the Saudi stock exchange, it relies in part on Saudi government contracts to sustain its business.
Vivian Nereim contributed to the reporting.