Money Grab/Charge for access to the president
Trump Organization unveils Trump Tower Tbilisi on land from a sanctioned oligarch’s fund
On April 22, 2026, the Trump Organization announced a 70-story mixed-use Trump Tower in Tbilisi, Georgia, the anchor of a roughly $2 billion ‘Tbilisi Downtown’ development, licensing its name to four Georgian companies led by Archi Group and to New York’s Sapir Organization.
What happened
On April 22, 2026, the Trump Organization announced its first project in Georgia, the former Soviet republic: a 70-story Trump Tower in Tbilisi. It is the centerpiece of a planned $2 billion downtown development. The company licenses its name; Georgian developers led by Archi Group, together with the Sapir Organization of New York, a longtime Trump partner, build and sell.
Archi’s founder formerly sat in parliament for Georgian Dream, the party that has governed since 2012. In September 2026 the Wall Street Journal reported that the developers had bought the land from a fund controlled by the family of Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder and the country’s most powerful man, in a transaction worth up to $85 million completed in July.
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Ivanishvili in December 2024 for actions undermining Georgia’s democracy and aligning it with Russia. Georgian opposition figures said the tower was a way for the government to get the American president’s attention.
Who benefited
The Trump Organization collects a licensing fee it has not disclosed. The Georgian government gets a Trump-branded tower in its capital at a moment when its relations with Washington depend on the president’s personal view of it.
Who wanted something
Georgian Dream and the people around Ivanishvili had a sanctioned founder, a drift toward Moscow and criticism for jailing opponents. The government had few ways to reach Trump. A tower with his name on it is one.
Who lost out
Georgians who want their country in Europe rather than in Russia’s orbit lose out, and they see the sanctions as leverage the tower undercuts. U.S. policy also lost: it sanctioned Ivanishvili with one hand while the president’s company took a project on his family’s land with the other.
Why it matters
The record’s foreign-licensing deals have mostly been with Gulf developers. This one, a roughly $2 billion project, is with partners tied to a man the U.S. government has sanctioned. The sanctions still stand; so does the tower deal.
Sources EurasianetForbesJAMnews (citing The Wall Street Journal)The Daily Beast