Six ongoing projects and a newly launched deal in Qatar expand the Trump Organization’s global footprint
US president Donald Trump disclosed that he received $21.9 million in license fees in 2024 from Saudi real estate developer Dar Al Arkan, according to a new financial disclosure filed Friday.
The payment, related to Trump-branded developments in Dubai and Oman, makes Dar Al Arkan the single largest contributor to the Trump Organization’s revenue in 2024.
The disclosure, filed Friday, reveals that Trump has now collected more than $27 million from Dar Al Arkan since 2021. The firm previously paid the Trump Organization $5.35 million between 2021 and 2022 to license the Trump name for a hotel, golf club, and villa complex in Oman. Additional licensing projects in Dubai and Oman accounted for the bulk of Trump’s 2024 earnings from the company.
Al Shelash, who described his ties to the Trumps as a “friendship,” has an estimated $900 million net worth, mostly in shares of Dar Al Arkan. The company currently has at least six active projects with the Trump Organization across Dubai, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. In January, Al Shelash told CNBC Arabia that a seventh project in Greece was underway, though it has not yet been officially announced.
Although many of these real estate partnerships were first initiated after Trump’s initial presidency ended in 2021, some deals are now moving forward during his second term. A new golf and villa development in Qatar, announced in April 2024, marked the first Trump-branded project to launch since he returned to the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, the Trump Organization has also expanded in Asia. In May, the company announced that it had broken ground on a new luxury golf and residential development in Vietnam, in partnership with Hung Yen Hospitality, a subsidiary of Vietnamese developer Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corp. Trump’s financial disclosure shows that Hung Yen paid the company $5 million in licensing fees in 2024.
“President Donald Trump visited Vietnam twice during his first term and expressed his love for our country,” Dang Thanh Tam, chairman of Kinh Bac, said in an interview with Forbes Vietnam. “When the conditions were right, we moved very quickly! At the same time, we understood the value of the Trump brand and had great faith in The Trump Organization and their high international standards.”
According to Dang, the agreement with Trump’s firm was finalized in late September 2023, roughly six weeks before the US presidential election. The project is expected to cost $1.5 billion and take four years to complete.
Dang, whose family’s holdings in Kinh Bac and SaigonTel are valued at around $160 million, built his empire in industrial development, counting companies like LG and Apple supplier Foxconn among his clients.
Read next: Trump continues to expand real estate empire abroad while in office
With projects still in development across Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and additional licensing and management fees expected in the coming years, Trump is poised to earn millions more from these international ventures throughout his current term.
However, not all of the Trump Organization’s global real estate plans are progressing smoothly. A high-profile $500 million luxury hotel project in Belgrade, Serbia, backed by Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners and Emirati billionaire Mohamed Alabbar, has hit legal trouble. Serbian prosecutors recently revealed that a cultural official allegedly forged a document to help advance the deal.
The Trump Organization has not yet commented on the status of the Belgrade development.
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