Trump Company Strikes Qatari Golf Resort Deal In A Sign It's Not Holding Back From Foreign Business

The Trump family company struck a deal Wednesday to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar in a sign it has no plans to hold back from foreign dealmaking during a second Trump administration , despite the danger of a president shaping U.S. public policy for personal financial gain.

The project, which features Trump-branded beachside villas and an 18-hole golf course to be built by a Saudi Arabian company, is the first foreign deal by the Trump Organization since Donald Trump took office and unlike any done in his first term. Back then, he forswore foreign deals in an extraordinary press conference surrounded by stacks of legal documents as he pledged to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest.

Noah Bookbinder, president of a watchdog group that has sued Trump for alleged ethics violations, blasted the Qatari deal.

"You want a president making decisions that are in the best interest of the United States, not his bottom line," said Bookbinder, who leads Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In addition to a Saudi Arabian partner, called Dar Global, the planned resort north of the Qatari capital of Doha will be developed by a Qatari company called Qatari Diar, which is owned by the Qatari government. That would appear to violate the Trump Organization's much weaker, second-term ethics pledge that, while it would pursue foreign deals, none would include foreign governments.