Trump's real-estate licensing income in foreign countries nearly doubled - and now features Qatar and Romania

By Victor Reklaitis

One ethics watchdog has 'grave concerns about the president doing business in foreign countries'

President Donald Trump's real-estate ventures include the Trump International Golf Club Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

President Trump's latest financial disclosure runs to nearly a thousand pages, showing more than $2 billion in total income - and that includes growing earnings from overseas real-estate licensing deals that are troubling to ethics watchdogs.

The disclosure, which covers last calendar year, lists 15 real-estate ventures in foreign countries that were worth about $1 million or more in license-fee income for 2025, with these undertakings delivering a total of about $59 million in income for the year.

These 15 ventures are in India, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. The undertakings in Qatar and Romania appear to be new developments in 2025, as there aren't references to them in Trump's annual financial disclosure for 2024. In addition, the Trump family's company did in fact announce new deals in those two countries in April 2025 and July 2025.

The president's license-fee income has ramped up since his annual financial disclosure for 2024, which became public in June 2025. For 2024, Trump disclosed just six real-estate ventures in foreign countries that were worth about $1 million or more in license-fee income, with these deals delivering a total of about $34 million in income for the year.

Some of the Trump Organization's licensing-based property ventures are a longstanding part of the president's business empire that predate his second term as president, such as the Trump International Golf Club Dubai, which opened in 2017. Others are still in development, such as a residential project in the Indian city of Gurugram, also called Gurgaon, which follows an earlier Trump project in that same city that opened to residents last year.

With these licensing arrangements, Trump sells the right to use his name to other developers who actually take on the financial risks of constructing the golf courses, hotels, residential buildings or other facilities.

Ethics watchdogs expressed dismay this week over the deals.

"I'm very concerned about it," said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as the chief ethics attorney in President George W. Bush's White House. He told MarketWatch that even if the licensing deals are with private entities and there's no obvious involvement by a foreign government, he still has "grave concerns about the president doing business in foreign countries."

"This is a very problematic situation, even if it's just private companies," Painter said in an interview. "Often, the private companies in a lot of these countries have close alliances with the government, so even though you wouldn't technically have a violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, you'd have a lot of the same issues for practical purposes."

The U.S. Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause bars any federal office holder from accepting compensation from a foreign state. Painter stressed that the Founding Fathers were so afraid of foreign influence - and the possibility of getting dragged into alliances and wars - that they put provisions like that clause in the Constitution.

"I think the president should be prohibited from having financial conflicts of interest when he's in office, even if it's private companies over in these countries," Painter said. "Imagine if you had high-ranking people in Franklin Roosevelt's administration who had a bunch of business deals going on in Germany, with all the big companies in Germany."

Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, which aims to track political influence, expressed similar worries.

"Given President Trump's immense discretion over foreign policy and the lack of checks or balances on his decisions, I am concerned that he might be favorably disposed to countries which further enrich him - and also that he might be predisposed against rival countries that do not," Hauser told MarketWatch in an email.

He said he's also concerned that it's "harder for the United States to be understood as a stable player in international affairs" if policy decisions are "not made on the basis of either enduring national interests or values, but which country dug deepest to further enrich the president and his family."

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly blasted some of the president's critics on ethical issues in an email to MarketWatch, saying they're "leftist, Trump-Deranged" and have been "baselessly attacking the President since his first term." The White House's press office earlier this week denied that Trump's latest financial disclosure raises concerns about conflicts of interest, offering the following statement to multiple media outlets: "Neither the president nor his family has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts of interest. All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people."

Now read: Trump just disclosed his finances for last year. He made over $2 billion on crypto, stocks, licensing and other deals.

-Victor Reklaitis

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07-02-26 1800ET