Since his re-election, Donald Trump’s family has substantially expanded its global business interests, prompting scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest. While the President maintains a separation from these ventures-managed by his sons, Donald Jr. adn Eric Trump-growing concerns are being raised by ethics experts and international observers regarding the intersection of political power and private financial gain. Recent reporting reveals a surge in the Trump family’s income, fueled largely by cryptocurrency investments and lucrative projects across the Balkans, Vietnam, and the Middle East, raising questions about the influence of these dealings on U.S. foreign policy and international norms.
Since Donald Trump’s re-election, his family has undertaken a global business expansion, ranging from Vietnam to the Balkans and the Persian Gulf.
While Donald Trump has declared complete distance from commercial interests, experts and politicians are increasingly warning that the use of presidential power in connection with the family business undermines not only American democracy but also international norms.
The Guardian reports that the official managers of the family empire – Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump – have launched dozens of projects in the past year: golf resorts, skyscraper construction, Trump brand licensing, and large-scale operations in the cryptocurrency sector.
According to Reuters data, the Trump family’s income increased 17-fold in the first half of the year – from $51 million to $864 million – with more than 90 percent of that sum coming not from real estate, but from cryptocurrency business.
The Balkans and Vietnam
In Serbia, where the construction of the Belgrade Trump Tower, valued at approximately $500 million, is underway, authorities have effectively stripped a historic building – the former Yugoslav People’s Army headquarters – of its protected status. This has triggered a media backlash against prosecutors attempting to investigate potential violations.
In Vietnam, approval for a $1.5 billion golf resort project was secured in just three months, an unprecedentedly short timeframe for the country. Meanwhile, local residents whose land is being expropriated are being displaced with minimal compensation. Notably, shortly after the project’s launch, the U.S. nearly halved previously established tariffs on Vietnamese goods.
The Middle East
The Trump family is also launching a series of luxury construction projects in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. In Qatar, a business deal with a state-owned company coincided with Trump’s approval to deploy American troops there. In Saudi Arabia, new projects were discussed just days before a decision to sell the kingdom F-35 fighter jets.
Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner openly describes such connections not as conflicts of interest, but as “trust capital,” noting that Saudi Arabia has invested billions in his investment fund.
Cryptocurrency business and clemency
Particular attention has been drawn to World Liberty Financial, established with the participation of Trump’s sons and the president himself before the inauguration. The company issued the cryptocurrency USD1, which was used in a $2 billion deal to sell a stake in the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, to the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund.
Shortly thereafter, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, previously convicted in the U.S. for violating anti-money laundering laws, received a presidential pardon. Days later, the U.S. also allowed the UAE access to advanced American artificial intelligence microchips.
The White House denies any connection between these events, but ethics experts point out that even the appearance of such coincidences erodes trust in American foreign policy. The series of events raises questions about the potential for leveraging political influence for private financial gain.
A dangerous precedent
Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes stated that the actions of the Trump family appear as a “classic scheme of personal enrichment linked to a great power.” According to him, this corrupt model is increasingly becoming the new norm in global politics.
