A contest of sorts has played out across Europe, the United States and the Middle East in recent days as President Trump’s two older sons have pursued a blitz of family moneymaking ventures capitalizing on their father’s name and power, each seemingly trying to outdo the other.
It is a rush to cash in that involves billions of dollars with few precedents in American history.
A luxury hotel in Dubai. A second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two cryptocurrency ventures based in the United States. A new golf course and villa complex in Qatar. And a new private club in Washington. In many cases these new deals promoted over the last week will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also President Trump himself.
“Challenge everything,” said the brochure for the new $1 billion, 80-story Trump International Hotel and Tower planned for Dubai, where units went on sale for the first time at prices reaching $20 million apiece, after a giant party held in Dubai this past week to honor Eric Trump and the new project. “Stop at nothing.”
The marathon of deal making has been so rapid that many elements have drawn limited public attention in the United States, despite most of it being out in the open. That is in part because the sons appeared before mostly fawning crowds but also because President Trump, his appointees and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk were making headlines with their own steady stream of norm-breaking controversies.
“There’s nothing like it,” said Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University historian who has written books on Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald R. Ford, addressing the financial conflicts of interest that have emerged in Mr. Trump’s second term.
