As President Trump pushes a new plan to take control of Gaza and clear out an area that once was home to an estimated two million residents, he is advocating for the United States to become more deeply involved in a region where his family has a growing collection of real-estate and business interests. There is no part of the world as crucial to the growth of various Trump family business ventures as the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Israel, when the full portfolio of Mr. Trump as well as Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, are included. Mr. Trump declared on Tuesday that the United States should seize control of Gaza and permanently displace the entire Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave. Mr. Trump suggested the resettlement of Palestinians would be akin to the New York real estate projects he built his career on.
The Middle East has in the past three years turned into the hottest spot for the Trump family in terms of new international real-estate deals. Most of these are so-called branding deals, which collectively earn the family tens of millions of dollars in fees in exchange for the right to use the name to help boost luxury condo, golf or hotel sales.
Recent agreements have been signed with a Saudi-based real estate company called Dar Al Arkan to build high-rise luxury apartments, golf courses or hotels in Oman, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. The project in Oman, which is the farthest along, involves the government of Oman itself, as it owns the land where the Trump golf course and hotel are being built.
The Trump family also has an outpost in the region. Trump International Golf Club, Dubai, opened in 2017, shortly after Mr. Trump started his first term in the White House. The partner in this Dubai club is DAMAC Properties, run by Hussain Sajwani, a billionaire real-estate executive who, Mr. Trump boasted in December, plans to invest billions of dollars in the United States to build data centers.
The Trump family also has been a key partner to LIV Golf, the upstart professional golf league financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. In April, for the fourth year in a row, the league is slated to hold one of its tournaments at the Trump National Doral near Miami. LIV Golf pays the Trump family to host the tournament, which also drives thousands of customers to its restaurants and hotel rooms during the weekend event, scheduled for April of this year.
Mr. Trump has long sought to attract these kinds of tournaments to his golf courses, but had at least one major event canceled after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, runs a private equity firm called Affinity Partners that has raised $4.5 billion, mostly from sovereign wealth funds of the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, based on relationships he built as an adviser to Mr. Trump during his first term. Mr. Kushner, who has said he does not plan to return to the White House, also has invested in at least two Israel-based businesses: Phoenix Holdings, an insurance company, and the car leasing division of Shlomo Holdings.
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