All the President’s Emiratis
by Fozzy Barely
May 30, 2025
Long before Trump ever slouched into the Oval Office, his name was already sunbaked into the Gulf like a gold-plated tombstone. The Trump International Golf Club Dubai, financed and built by Emirati developer and influence peddler Hussain Sajwani, officially opened for tee times in February 2017—just weeks after Trump took the oath. It wasn’t a coincidence, and it sure as hell wasn’t subtle. The project had been in the works since 2013, but the cherries lined up and the bell started ringing the moment the Trump name was legally stapled to both the golf club and American foreign policy.
Trump didn’t put up a dime. What he sold was the brand—his favorite asset class—and in return he continues to collect millions in licensing fees, routed through the Trump Organization during his first term, throughout his time in the private sector, and now once again from inside the Oval Office. There was no divestment or blind trust, only an unmanned velvet rope between the American presidency and the temperature-controlled sanctum of the clubhouse lounge, where power is traded like fragrance and no one breaks a sweat.
Sajwani, for his part, was thrilled. He got public praise from the President of the United States. He got dinner at Mar-a-Lago. He got to brag to his investors that the President of the United States was on the books, contract signed, payments cleared, and no firewall in sight. And if you stood too close, you could almost smell it on him—cigar cotton candy and war crimes—the unmistakable cologne of transactional diplomacy gone full Muppet, like Elmo on a bad day.
And because DAMAC isn’t just some scrappy real estate outfit—it’s functionally an extension of the Emirati ruling class—the entire setup may as well have been a direct deposit from a foreign government.
Which is, for the record, exactly what the Constitution says you’re not supposed to do. The Foreign Emoluments Clause, tucked into Article I like a pressure-release valve for monarchy-curious real estate tycoons, makes it explicitly illegal for any U.S. official to accept payments, gifts, or “emoluments” from foreign states without congressional approval. But Trump wasn’t interested in approval. He was interested in applause. And so the money flowed, the flags waved, and somewhere between the pro shop and the driving range, the Constitution suffered a myocardial infarction and is currently recovering in the ICU, hooked up to a ventilator and muttering something about precedent through a morphine haze.
No one stopped him. Congress shrugged. The courts went catatonic. And just like that, the old norms became new jokes. The fairways of Dubai weren’t just mowed—they were paved with precedent. This wasn’t a golf course. It was a proof of concept. A beta test for selling off the presidency, one sand trap at a time.
Trump’s first presidency didn’t just blur the line between foreign policy and personal profit — it used it as a launch ramp. From the moment he took office, the Middle East was less a region than a showroom, stocked with sovereign wealth, authoritarian flattery, and a cast of regional fixers who understood that the fastest way to influence American foreign policy was through a hotel invoice or a licensing agreement.
He made Saudi Arabia his first official foreign visit, skipping traditional allies in Europe and landing directly in Riyadh, where he was met with sword dances, glowing orbs, and enough pageantry to make a lesser narcissist combust. The trip produced immediate returns: over $100 billion in proposed arms sales, a photo op in front of a glowing globe that broke the last functioning irony meter in the State Department, and a signal to every Gulf monarch that access was back on the table — and this time, it came with branding opportunities.
Foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, began booking lavish stays at Trump-branded properties, including the Trump International Hotel in Washington, while their officials met with U.S. lawmakers or White House aides just a few blocks away. Revenue flowed directly to the Trump Organization, even as U.S. foreign policy tilted toward those same clients. No firewall. No shame. No accountability.
In exchange, the Gulf states received preferential treatment, arms deals, diplomatic cover, and silence on human rights abuses. The White House backed the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar (until it didn’t), gave a blank check to the war in Yemen, and all but declared the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia absolved after the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, even as U.S. intelligence pointed directly to Mohammed bin Salman.
Trump looked at the murder of a U.S.-based journalist, shrugged, and said, “Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.” What mattered more was that the Saudis had just pledged $110 billion in defense contracts and booked the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago for brunch.
It wasn’t policy. It was hospitality management with nukes.
When the curtain came down on Trump’s first term, the grift didn’t stop. It simply changed names on the contract.
Post-Term Paydays
Jared Kushner, who had spent four years with the blank-check portfolio of “Senior Advisor to the President,” walked out of the White House and into a $2 billion deal with the same regime he’d spent years flattering, shielding, and arming.
The $2 billion investment in Kushner’s newly formed private equity fund, Affinity Partners, was approved — a commitment that all but guaranteed him annual management fees in the range of $20 to $40 million, based on standard industry terms. He didn’t need to generate outsized returns. He just needed to exist — with the right last name and a cleared security badge on his résumé.
There was no mystery here. It wasn’t subtle. It was a gratuity, disguised as venture capital.
Kushner wasn’t the only one cashing in after January 2021. The Trump family spent the four years between administrations treating the post-presidency like an open bar for foreign influence, brand licensing, and regulatory dodgeball.
Ivanka’s Trademarks
Throughout Trump’s first term — and especially in the final years — Ivanka pursued and received dozens of trademarks from foreign governments, including at least 34 in China and several in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, fast-tracked while she held an official White House title.
In China, the trademarks covered products ranging from handbags, spa services, and cosmetics to voting machines, elder care facilities, and education services — a surreal portfolio that blurred the line between aspirational lifestyle brand and authoritarian vending machine. In the UAE, she locked down protections for fashion, health, and wellness categories.
She publicly shut down her fashion label in 2018, but never divested from the trademarks, which remain viable for licensing or reactivation — like dormant mines waiting to be reopened when the market turns.
Why So Hospitable?
At some point, you have to stop asking how the Trump family keeps getting these deals — and start asking why so many foreign regimes are so eager to give them what they want. Why do China, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia keep opening doors, fast-tracking approvals, and funding untested ventures for a clan that’s supposedly out of power?
The answer is as bleak as it is obvious: they’re not investing in business. They’re investing in access. And the returns aren’t measured in quarterly profits — they’re measured in arms deals, deregulation, diplomatic cover, and the creeping normalization of transactional government. They gambled that Trump might win again — and win he did.
The Second Term
By the time Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the Gulf states weren’t just prepared — they were already positioned. New tech deals were in motion. Foreign partnerships were ready to be routed through licensing, real estate, crypto ventures, and sovereign cash.
One figure looms above the rest: Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed, the UAE’s national security advisor and chair of a $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund — and now the man behind a $100 billion AI infrastructure initiative drawing Western partners like OpenAI and Nvidia. Tahnoun has a long public history of working with China in sectors like biotech and surveillance, and has also been accused of using state-controlled platforms to suppress dissent.
And yet, when he appeared to pivot from Beijing toward Mar-a-Lago, the Chinese said nothing. No retaliation. No recalibration. Just quiet confidence — as if their interests were already baked into the deal.
The Grift, Scaled
The Trump family has already raked in hundreds of millions in licensing, management fees, and foreign business revenue — and if history is any guide, the grift won’t stop.
It will scale.
Because this isn’t the final chapter. There is no final chapter.
However, look for Trump Coin to be covered in detail in a coming edition of “The Grift.”
The grift goes on.
The grift goes on.
Filed from the tarmac at Doha International, where a golden 747 just winked at me.
