“Blatant as it comes”: Ethics experts alarmed by Trump hotel deal in Oman

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A new Trump hotel and golf course under development in the Gulf of Oman has raised new ethical concerns as Donald Trump runs for president again in 2024, a New York Times investigation revealed Tuesday.

Trump was both invited to the project by a Saudi Arabian real estate firm that has close ties to the Saudi government and is now doing business directly with the Omani government to develop it.

“It’s clearly coming,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington chief ethics council Virginia Canter told the Times. “How and when will he sell US interests? That’s the question it creates. This is the kind of corruption our founding fathers were most concerned about.”

“I’ve never seen anything like the Oman deal, the potential for a conflict of interest.”

As part of his investigation, Times reporter Eric Lipton conducted interviews, visited Oman’s construction site, and looked at hundreds of pages of financial documents.

“As a NYT reporter, I have been investigating the Trump family’s international dealings since 2016,” Lipton tweeted. “India, Indonesia, Philippines, Turkey, Panama. I’ve never seen anything like the Oman deal, the potential for conflict of interest.”

According to the terms of the deal, the Trump Organization will design a hotel, golf course, and golf club and manage them for up to 30 years. It won’t put any money into the project, but has already received at least $5 million.

Its business partners are Saudi real estate firm Dar Al Arkan and the government of Oman, which is putting up land and money for the project and will reap a share of the profits over time.

Lipton noted that both Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner worked to deepen US relations with Oman while Trump was in office. Oman is an ally of the US and an important player in the region as it maintains a relationship with both Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Trump has also deepened ties with Saudi Arabia during his presidency. After his departure, he and Kushner continued to do business in the country, as he worked with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to host the LIV golf tour and Kushner received a $2 billion investment from the fund.

Trump announced that he would be re-elected on November 15, 2022. Days later, DarGlobalposteda YouTube video launching Trump-brand facilities at the Oman resort featured footage of a deal-closing event at Trumptower that Trump attended the same week. In February 2023, after his father threw his hat in the presidential ring, Eric Trump traveled to Oman to meet with officials there.

“His stake in the Oman project while he is running again for president only focuses more attention on whether and how his own financial interests might influence foreign policy if he returns to the White House,” he wrote. by Lipton for theTimes.

Federal prosecutors behind Trump’s guilty plea for mishandling classified documents have already subpoenaed information about his deals with foreign governments, including the LIV golf tour.

“This alone should disqualify Trump from being president again,” journalist Victoria Brownworth tweeted in response to the Timesrevelations.

Another potential concern raised by Lipton is the possibility of labor rights violations in the construction of the project. Daytime temperatures in Oman can reach 100s of degrees Fahrenheit, and the country, like other gulf nations, has faced criticism for its treatment of migrant workers. Workers on the new project were paid as little as $340 per month for the first phase of construction, an engineer told Lipton.

“It’s too hottoo hot,” 38-year-old supervisor Mathan Mp of Tamil Nadu, India, told the Times. “But we came for work. We have a time schedule. We have to finish the project.”

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