President Trump pledged to bring business back to the U.S. His own company has been doing more business overseas than ever before.
Since the November election, the Trump Organization, the family’s flagship real-estate firm, and its partners have publicly announced 12 international projects including residential high-rises, hotels and golf courses—far outpacing the two overseas deals announced during his first administration.
The Trump Organization released an ethics agreement in January barring the company from doing business directly with foreign governments. Yet several of the deals involve foreign governments, especially in the Middle East.
The Trumps say there is a crucial distinction. The company isn’t transacting directly with foreign governments. Rather, some of the Trump deals are joint ventures with companies that are doing business with foreign governments.
The 12 developments were under contract before November, according to a Trump representative. Since Trump’s re-election, however, company executives say international partners are more eager to do business because the Trump name is now associated with his victory. “We’re the hottest brand in the world right now,” said Eric Trump, the president’s son who is running the Trump Organization on a day-to-day basis.
State-backed entities have also been involved in several recent Trump deals in the Gulf region, including a resort featuring luxury villas with private beach access in Qatar. The real-estate company is expanding beyond the property business, striking a $2 billion cryptocurrency deal with the United Arab Emirates state fund in May.
“I think everybody knows that these countries are giving money to Donald Trump because they think they’ll get favorable treatment in exchange,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Middle East subcommittee. White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said, “The President is working to secure good deals for the American people, not for himself.”
In the past six months, the Trump Organization ramped up its real-estate ventures in India, launching two projects with its longstanding partner, Tribeca Developers. Tribeca also announced plans for three more Trump-branded projects in the country.
Tribeca Developers founder Kalpesh Mehta, who first met Donald Trump Jr. through a mutual Wharton professor, has maintained close ties with the Trump family since at least 2013, according to local media reports. He attended both of Donald Trump’s inaugurations and dined with the family at Mar-a-Lago, including a private dinner this past January.
Since November, Mehta has stated in local publications that demand for Trump properties has sharply increased across the country. In May, Tribeca and the Trump Organization announced a record-breaking over $300 million in sales after selling out a second Trump Residences Delhi on launch day.
Neither Mehta nor Tribeca Developers responded to requests for comment.
The Trump Organization’s international expansion largely hinges on a licensing model: It collects fees for its brand and management services, rather than committing its own funds to the projects. Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure shows more than $9 million from six overseas licensing agreements between January 2023 and August 2024. Since the November election, the Trump Organization has unveiled twice as many deals.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have made at least nine overseas trips to a dozen countries since November—many tied to Trump Organization ventures—including a swing through Eastern Europe that Donald Jr. promoted as “Trump Business Vision 2025.” Along the way, he dined with prime ministers, spoke at cryptocurrency events, and touted to local media that the Trump Organization desired to explore new partnerships abroad.
During Trump’s first administration, by contrast, the company gave priority to existing operations, debt reduction and cash reserves. The lower profile overseas also avoided appearances of conflicts of interest, according to Donald Trump’s 2023 deposition during his civil court battle with New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump said he told his children: “Don’t do deals. We don’t need deals…We have a lot of property. They’re great properties. Run them.”
Eric Trump said in an interview in October that the company was reconsidering that approach because it wasn’t given sufficient credit for its pullback in the first Trump administration.
“Should I stop all expansion? I don’t know what the answer is. I tried to do everything right in 2016, and I got very little credit for it,” he said of efforts to distance the newly elected president from the company. “We still kind of got stomped on.”
Write to Brenna T. Smith at brenna.smith@wsj.com, Peter Grant at peter.grant@wsj.com and Daniel Kiss at daniel.kiss@wsj.com