Eight Foreign Deals. Three Gifts From Washington. Same Family.

April 20, 2026

In Donald Trump's first term as president, the Trump Organization did not close a single foreign deal. In the first year of his second term, the family has closed at least eight, according to an April 2026 PBS NewsHour investigation. Golf clubs and villas in Qatar. A beachfront resort in Vietnam. A "Trump Plaza" on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. A third Saudi partnership with a firm owned by the country's sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Now look at the other ledger. Qatar got approval for advanced U.S. technology access. Vietnam got tariff relief. Saudi Arabia got fighter jets. The fees flow to the family. The concessions flow from the Oval Office.

The Trump Organization denies any conflict. Government ethics experts call the pattern unprecedented and say every piece of it would have been stopped under the norms that governed every modern presidency before this one.

The deals, by country

In Qatar, a Trump-branded golf and villa project is being developed in part by a company owned by the Qatari government itself. In Vietnam, the New York Times reported that the central government pushed farmers off their land to clear the site for a Trump resort, and the country's deputy prime minister signed off at a ceremony. In Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea "Trump Plaza" is being built by a developer tied to the ruling family, and in January the Trump Organization added a third Saudi deal, this one a collaboration with a firm owned directly by the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund.

None of these transactions would have been possible without the governments on the other side. None of them generate income for a private citizen. They generate income for a president's family while he sits in office.

The policy payoff, documented

Days before the inauguration, the Trump family sold nearly half of its World Liberty Financial crypto business to a UAE government-linked entity for $500 million. Shortly after, the Trump administration reversed a Biden-era restriction and granted the UAE access to advanced U.S. chips. That is not innuendo. That is a public transaction followed by a public policy reversal, documented by PBS NewsHour and Democracy Now.

Vietnam, after its resort deal, received tariff relief from the same administration that was threatening tariffs everywhere else. Saudi Arabia, after inking Trump's third deal in under a year, secured fighter jet sales. The line between foreign business partner and foreign government is not blurry in any of these cases. The governments are the business partners.

Why it matters beyond one family

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) projects that Trump's foreign property income is set to explode during his second term, eclipsing anything ever seen from a sitting U.S. president. Every deal sets a precedent. The next president can point to this ledger and say, if he did it, so can I.

That is the deeper damage. The Emoluments Clause was written to stop exactly this kind of arrangement: a president accepting payments of value from foreign states. The founders understood that if you let a chief executive profit from the governments he negotiates with, you no longer have a chief executive. You have a deal-maker for himself.

What accountability would look like

It would look like the Trump Organization divesting from every foreign project tied to a foreign government, the way every modern president before Trump placed business holdings in a blind trust. It would look like House Democrats forcing roll-call votes on foreign-deal disclosure that put Republicans on record. It would look like state attorneys general using whatever tools they have left to pursue the cases federal DOJ no longer will.

Until then, the public ledger is the ledger. Eight foreign deals. Three countries with U.S. policy gifts in the same window. One family getting paid.