Tom Burgis writes:

A crusading prosecutor in the Balkans comes under pressure to drop a big case. Vietnamese villagers learn they are to be evicted. A convicted crypto kingpin in the Gulf receives a pardon.

All have one thing in common: they appear to be connected to the Trump family’s campaign to amass riches around the world. Since Donald Trump’s re-election a year ago, warnings that his use of presidential power to advance personal interests is corroding American democracy have grown ever louder. What is less understood – and perhaps even more dangerous – is the damage this is doing everywhere else.

Trump’s eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric, formally the custodians of the family business, are conducting a global dealmaking blitz. They have broken ground on new golf courses, received permission for new skyscrapers, rented out the Trump brand, and in cryptocurrency they have embraced a venture with the capacity to bring in more than everything that has gone before.

They insist, in Eric’s words, that there is a “huge wall” between this moneymaking and their father’s position as the most powerful man alive. “Nothing I do has anything to do with the White House,” Eric told CNN recently.

But Kristofer Harrison, a senior foreign policy official under President George W Bush who now runs an anti-corruption organisation called the Dekleptocracy Project, is among those accusing the Trumps of operating a “pay to play” system that benefits those who do business with the president’s family. Such an approach could be manipulated, he said, especially by rival powers such as China. He said: “Trump has made authoritarians’ wildest dreams come true.”

Despite allegations – denied by the White House – of conflicts of interest, no explicit quid pro quos have been proven. But the Trumps’ business interests are raising questions about convictions that have been quashed, sensitive technologies transferred, tariffs eased, alliances forged. Should any of this give the appearance of abuse of public office for private gain – commonly known as corruption – ethics experts fear it invites other rulers to do the same.

In Trump’s first term, the chief concern was whether foreign rulers would take expensive suites at Trump’s Washington hotel as a way of putting money in his pocket. He pledged that there would be no family business deals abroad. That pledge has now been ditched. And although the president has put his stakes in the family’s businesses in a trust, his financial disclosures show profits still flow to him.

The Trumps’ most natural allies – first in business, now also in politics – have long been the rulers of the Gulf’s petro-monarchies, who see no distinction between their states’ interests and their families’.

Since last year, the Trumps’ business in the region has accelerated. A golf course in Oman; Dubai apartments going on sale. Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, said Trump’s trip to the Middle East in May seemed “less like a presidential visit and more like a personal business venture”.

In Qatar, a golf resort deal with a state company in April was followed the next month by the gift of a “flying palace” for Trump to use as Air Force One, then in October he committed US troops to defend the tiny Gulf state. In Saudi Arabia, where new golf and hotel projects are already under way, news in November of yet another potential venture – in a development overseen by the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – emerged days before Trump agreed to sell F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and sometime diplomatic envoy, said recently: “What people call conflicts of interests … I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world.” The Saudis have given his fund billions. [Continue reading…]