Money Grab/Charge for access to the president
Foreign licence fees paid Trump $59.5M in 2025, from ten countries
Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure shows his international real estate licensing business brought in about $60 million, up roughly 900% from 2023 and about 30% from 2024. The UAE provided $23 million, India about $10 million and Saudi Arabia about $9 million, with Qatar, Romania and Vietnam at about $5 million each.
What happened
Trump’s annual financial disclosure for 2025, released June 30, 2026, reported his international real estate licensing income. Forbes put the total at $61 million, up about 30% from 2024 and 900% from 2023, when the business looked nearly dead; this record’s sum of the line items is $59.5 million. The money comes from developers in 10 countries who pay to put the Trump name on their buildings.
The United Arab Emirates provided the largest share, $23 million through two developers, including Hussain Sajwani’s Damac, whose Dubai golf deal alone paid $1.3 million. India paid about $10 million, Saudi Arabia about $9 million, and Qatar, Romania and Vietnam about $5 million each.
In 2017 Trump pledged no new foreign deals while in office; the pledge lapsed when he left, and the pipeline rebuilt from a November 2022 Oman deal with Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan, signed the day before he announced his campaign. The filing also shows family members, presumably Eric and Donald Jr., now hold 20% of his new licensing deals. This aggregate supersedes the per-country and per-project entries for counting.
Who benefited
Trump receives the licensing income personally, and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who run the Trump Organization, now hold 20% of new deals. The business grew roughly tenfold between 2023, when Trump was out of office, and 2025, his first year back.
Who wanted something
Developers in the UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Romania and Vietnam, among 10 countries, paid the fees, and their governments had business before the administration in 2025. The UAE had a $2 billion stablecoin deal and AI chips; India and Vietnam had tariffs; Saudi Arabia had a $142 billion arms package; Qatar had $243.5 billion in announced deals, about $3 billion in arms sales and a gift jet.
Who lost out
The Constitution bars a president from taking payments from foreign states without the consent of Congress. The payers here are private developers, but several depend on their governments for land and approvals, and those governments were negotiating with the administration. Congress has not addressed the income.
Why it matters
Foreign partners paid a sitting president about $60 million for the use of his name in his first year back in office, nearly 10 times what the same business made before he returned to power. The largest single source was the UAE, at $23 million, whose state fund was simultaneously routing $2 billion through his family’s stablecoin.
Sources ForbesQuartzNBC Palm SpringsU.S. Office of Government Ethics (primary)