8 Countries And Counting: Trump's Real Estate Brand Booms Globally
Eric Trump, the president’s son and the top executive of the family’s eponymous real estate empire, landed in Vietnam this week.
He was there to attend a groundbreaking event for a $1.5B complex that The Trump Organization is helping build and brand. While there, he is also reportedly scouting locations for another Southeast Asian project, a potential tower in Ho Chi Minh City.
After winning the election, President Donald Trump once again handed control of his real estate empire to his sons, who have forged ahead on new partnerships in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.
The Vietnam visit by Eric Trump, who along with Donald Trump Jr. is executive vice president at the development firm, is the latest in a string of high-profile moves from the real estate family. Here’s what The Trump Organization has been up to since Donald Trump launched his successful bid to retake the White House.
A Golf Resort In Vietnam
Vietnam’s prime minister stood beside Eric Trump this week for the groundbreaking of a 2,446-acre resort with Trump branding outside Hanoi.
The $1.5B development is set to include three 18-hole golf courses, luxury residences, five-star hotels and retail offerings. The first phase is set to deliver within three years, with full completion before 2030.
Eric Trump’s visit to Vietnam “motivated us to expedite the project,” Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said while urging local officials to offer their maximum support, Reuters reported. The sprawling development is a partnership, first announced in October, between The Trump Organization and local publicly traded developer Kinhbac City.
At the groundbreaking, Eric Trump said The Trump Organization was planning to work with Kinhbac City on several other projects in Vietnam.
“This project and many of the other ones that we do together are going to be the envy of all of Asia. They’re going to be the envy of the entire world, and Vietnam deserves it,” he said, according to Bloomberg.
Trump And Kushner Team Up
The Trump Organization is teaming up with Jared Kushner, the husband of Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, on a complex in Belgrade, Serbia, that is set to include three towers containing a 175-key hotel, more than 1,500 residences and a retail component, according to The New York Times.
It’s the first development partnership between the Trump and Kushner families, both prolific developers from New York. Affinity Partners, Kushner’s private equity firm, and real estate developer Asher Abehsera are leading the European Trump-branded development.
It is slated to rise on the site of a Serbian Defense Ministry complex that was bombed and damaged by a NATO campaign in 1999, leaving it a mostly vacant historic landmark. The Serbian government approved the redevelopment and a 99-year ground lease last year, sparking controversy in the capital city.
Thousands of protestors have taken to the streets this year to object to the development. Many want the site to remain untouched as a monument.
This month, Serbian authorities arrested a member of Serbia’s historic preservation agency, alleging he forged documents to smooth the way for the project. But Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said later in the week that no forgery had been committed and the development would move forward.
A Supertall In Dubai
Dar Global, the London-listed arm of Saudi Arabia’s biggest developer, Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Co., unveiled its plans for a Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai this month.
The developer of the Burj Khalifa is planning to build a 1,148-foot-tall glass-clad tower with 126 hotel rooms and 446 residences. The tower would feature the world’s highest outdoor pool, according to the developer. It has units starting at around $1M and priced up to $20M and allows buyers to pay with cryptocurrency, Bloomberg reported.
The $1B tower will also have a members-only club, an amenity that has been a part of other recently announced Trump projects.
The partnership on a Dubai tower was first announced in July 2024. It’s one of several Trump-branded projects Dar Global is building in the Middle East following a 2022 licensing agreement with the president’s real estate firm for a golf course with a hotel and villas in Oman.
“Dubai is a global destination that shares our vision for iconic development, and we’re proud to expand the Trump brand in one of the most dynamic cities on earth,” Eric Trump said in a statement.
Office Towers In India
The Trump Organization’s local partner in India announced plans for Trump World Center in March.
The 4.3-acre project in the city of Pune will have two 27-story office towers totaling 1.6M SF, Bloomberg reported. One tower will have leasable office space, while the other will have office condos that are expected to fetch a combined $289M in sales, according to The Trump Organization. A luxury retail strip will tie the two towers together.
Trump World Center is being developed by Mumbai-based Tribeca Developers and Kundan Spaces.
It would be the first nonresidential project in India to bear the Trump brand. But Kalpesh Mehta, the founder of Tribeca Developers, told Reuters in March that the developer was planning as many as four Trump-branded luxury residential projects in the country.
A Resort District in Qatar
Eric Trump also jetted to Doha, Qatar, in April for the unveiling of plans for a branded 18-hole golf course and a collection of luxury beachside villas in the tiny Gulf nation.
The Trump International Golf Course and Trump Villas are also being built by Dar Global. The project is a piece of a $5.5B master-planned development in Simaisma, just north of the emirate’s capital.
Qatari Diar, a state-run development firm and master developer of the project, is planning to anchor the three miles of beachfront property with a theme park larger than Disney’s Magic Kingdom called Land of Legends that broke ground in November.
The project site also had 16 available plots to be sold to private developers for hotels, condos and other commercial uses, Qatari Diar CEO Ali Mohamed Al-Ali told Bloomberg last June. The Trump-branded portion will cover roughly 10% of the Simaisma site.
“Trump International Golf Club, Doha, together with our exclusive villa community, will embody the highest levels of quality, prestige, and timeless elegance that define the Trump name,” Eric Trump said in a statement last month.
Trump Tower Damascus?
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new leader in Syria and a former member of al-Qaida who has since denounced the terrorist group, wants to build a Trump-branded tower in Damascus.
The concept was first proposed by Joe Wilson, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to Congress, Reuters reported. But the pitch became a full-fledged proposal as al-Sharaa worked to catch the president’s attention ahead of his Middle East tour this month.
Tiger Group, a developer based in the United Arab Emirates, hopes to build the project. It is proposing a 45-story fin-shaped tower that it says would take roughly three years to build at a cost of $100M to $200M.
Walid Mohammad al-Zoubi, the head of Tiger Group, told The Guardian that he was still working on selecting a site for the property and had not yet secured a franchise permit to use the Trump name.
Trump met al-Sharaa while in Saudi Arabia this month and said the U.S. planned to lift all U.S. sanctions against Syria, a move that caught some of his own administration by surprise.
“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump said. “Good luck Syria, show us something very special.”
Trump Tower Jeddah
Dar Global broke ground on Trump Tower Jeddah in January, roughly six months after the two firms announced plans to build the kingdom’s second Trump-branded skyscraper.
The 47-story tower with units ranging from one to four bedrooms is set to deliver by the end of 2029. The tower is another licensing deal with Dar Global for The Trump Organization, according to The New York Times, but the details of those contracts have not been disclosed.
Trump Tower Jeddah is expected to cost roughly $530M to build. Once finished, it will also include a private club that the developer said will be the first members-only club in Saudi Arabia.
“Jeddah is undergoing a remarkable evolution, moving from traditional housing to dynamic high-rises,” Dar Global CEO Ziad El Chaar said in a December statement. “Trump Tower Jeddah will be a key enabler of this shift, combining ultra-luxury with the vibrancy of modern life."
Eric Trump told Reuters in December that The Trump Organization was also exploring plans for a tower in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The First Of Many
The Trump Organization and Dar Global first partnered together in 2022 on a plan for a Trump-branded golf resort outside Muscat, Oman. The deal marked the Trump family’s first international marketing agreement since Donald Trump left the presidency in 2020.
The Trump International Golf Club and Hotel, which was unveiled in June 2024, is part of a master-planned development called Aida. The 14-square-mile mixed-use project is being built by Dar Global and Omran Group, an arm of the government’s tourism development department.
The sprawling community is being built in phases and will include at least three condo towers, one with Marriott branding. The project’s first phase is scheduled for delivery in 2027, with the 140-key Trump-branded hotel opening in 2028.
