Do Trump’s real estate ambitions know no bounds?

The Trump family has spent the last three years growing its real estate and business portfolio in the Middle East and it looks as though they consider nothing to be off-limits.

Owned by Donald Trump, the Trump Organization is a conglomerate with around 250 affiliates that mainly invests in luxury real estate, such as skyscrapers, hotels and golf courses, according to Al-Monitor.

The Middle East region has become crucial to this organization, with ventures extending from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to Israel to Oman, The New York Times reports.

Last July, Trump’s son Eric Trump told the Financial Times that the Trump Organization wanted to pursue more deals in the Middle East.

Most of the deals already done in the Middle East by both the Trump Organization and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, are branding deals.

Photo: The Trump Organization website

This means the organization puts its seal on each enterprise with the Trump brand to boost its appeal and earns tens of millions in return.

An agreement with Saudi-based real-estate outfit Dar Al Arkan and its subsidiary Dar Global has led to Trump-branded luxury apartments, golf courses and hotels in Saudi, Dubai and Oman.

The Oman venture has already earned the Trump family $7.5 million over the course of the past two years, despite the fact that it is still three years off completion.

Photo: Dar Global website

A venture in Israel was also in the pipeline prior to the October 7 attacks in 2023. Now Eric Trump has made it clear that he will wait until the current conflict comes to an end before pressing on with it.

Dubai was the first Middle East enclave to attract Trump’s interest and, in 2017, the Trump International Golf Club opened. Now a Trump Tower in Dubai has been announced, according to Al-Monitor.

Jared Kushner, meanwhile, has his fingers in various pies in the region. His private equity firm Affinity Partners has seen an injection of capital worth $4.5 billion coming primarily from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

Kushner also has interests in two Israeli companies, one of which – Shlomo Holdings –is in turn a partner in a company that builds Israel’s own warships.

Beating his father-in-law to voicing an interest in Gaza as a prime real-estate opportunity, Kushner said last year “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,” according to The New York Times.

Speaking at an event in the US, Kushner went on to suggest that Israel should “move the people out and then clean it up.”

Now The US President himself has seconded the suggestion, stating on February 4 that Gaza be swept clean of Palestinians and the remnants of war and turned into a US-run “Riviera of the Middle East,” The Guardian reports.

Whether this last real-estate fantasy will ever come true remains to be seen, though it has been so widely condemned by the rest of the world that his senior aides are rowing quickly back on at least some aspects of it.

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