Money Grab/Charge for access to the president
A Saudi developer pays Trump $5.25M for a Qatar golf resort with a Qatari state company
On April 30, 2025, the Trump Organization and Saudi developer Dar Global announced a Trump-branded golf club and villas near Doha with Qatari Diar, a company owned by Qatar’s government. It was the first new foreign Trump deal disclosed after the second inauguration.
What happened
On April 30, 2025, in Doha, Qatari Diar signed an agreement with Dar Global to build Trump International Golf Club and Trump-branded villas. Dar Global is the international arm of Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan. The site is about 790,000 square metres of the Simaisma masterplan, roughly 40 km north of Doha. Qatari Diar is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, the state’s sovereign wealth fund, and leads the wider masterplan. Eric Trump attended the signing.
The deal came two weeks before Trump’s official visit to Qatar on May 14-15, 2025. Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, released June 30, 2026, lists $5.25 million received as a license fee for the Doha golf club and resort. It is part of about $21.9 million Trump reported from Dar Al Arkan for the year and $38 million in licensing fees from Gulf developers in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Trump Organization’s ethics policy bars new deals with foreign governments but allows deals with private foreign companies. Eric Trump has said the company’s contract is with Dar Global, not Qatari Diar.
Who benefited
Trump and the Trump Organization, run by his son Eric, collected a $5.25 million license fee in 2025 for putting the Trump name on the project. More is due as villas sell.
Who wanted something
Dar Global pays the fee, and Qatar is the project’s partner and landowner through its state-owned Qatari Diar, which leads the masterplan. Qatar was two weeks from hosting the president on an official visit. The following month it gave the Air Force a $400 million jet for his use.
Who lost out
You did: the Constitution bars a president from taking payments from a foreign state without the consent of Congress. The fee here is routed through a private Saudi company, but the project partner and landowner is a company owned by Qatar’s government.
Why it matters
The president’s company signed a deal built on land controlled by a foreign government’s company two weeks before he visited that country on official business. It collected $5.25 million in its first year. The structure, a private developer in the middle, is what lets the Trump Organization say its no-foreign-government rule was not broken.
Sources The NationalTrump Organization (press release) (primary)The New ArabTimes of IsraelU.S. Office of Government Ethics (primary)