Perhaps the UAE\u2019s US$1.4t pledge was responsible for getting it done. Perhaps Sheikh Tahnoon\u2019s decision to have his company, MGX, partner last May with the Trump family\u2019s cryptocurrency enterprise, World Liberty Financial, played a part. As Bloomberg News reported, MGX used a World Liberty stablecoin to fund a US$2b investment in Binance, a crypto exchange that had previously run afoul of US anti-money laundering laws. Or perhaps the UAE\u2019s hefty investment in a firm founded by Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, made a difference.<\/p>\n
Any or those factors may explain why Trump cut such a cosy and reckless deal with Sheikh Tahnoon and the UAE. But the Wall Street Journal\u2019s entry in that particular debate over this past weekend may be the winner.<\/p>\n
The Journal reported on Saturday that just days before Trump\u2019s inauguration, an enterprise backed by Sheikh Tahnoon secretly agreed to pay US$500m for a 49% stake in World Liberty. Trump\u2019s son, Eric, signed the deal, two of Sheikh Tahnoon\u2019s deputies joined World Liberty\u2019s board, and the Trumps got about US$187m from the transaction. The Journal said that at least US$31m was designated for entities tied to the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder. Witkoff \u2013 whose son, Zach, also co-founded World Liberty \u2013 is now Trump\u2019s special envoy to the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Representatives for Tahnoon said Trump played no role in the previously undisclosed transaction. A World Liberty spokesman also said that Trump and Witkoff weren\u2019t involved and told the Journal that the company was being held to an unfair standard that was \u201cridiculous and un-American\u201d. If policing raw financial conflicts of interest and possible grifting by Trump and his family is now un-American, then he has a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public,\u201d a White House spokeswoman told the Journal, while noting that his children oversee his assets. \u201cThere are no conflicts of interest.\u201d She added that Witkoff is working to \u201cadvance President Trump\u2019s goals of peace around the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
A White House counsel also weighed in, telling the Journal that Trump is not involved in any business transactions that \u201cwould implicate his constitutional responsibilities\u201d.<\/p>\n
Colour me sceptical that no conflicts of interest cling to this mess or that Trump isn\u2019t compromising his constitutional responsibilities. Conflicts of interest are rampant in the money grabs gilding the US and UAE\u2019s chip deals. And safeguarding US national security is one of the presidency\u2019s primary mandates. It\u2019s one reason why the US Constitution grants the executive branch so much latitude in foreign affairs.<\/p>\n
The US and China are in a footrace for technological dominance that has economic and military consequences. Undermining US competitiveness in exchange for massive paydays crafted in the shadows is wildly irresponsible and dangerous \u2013 and puts the wellbeing of average Americans and the American experiment at risk.<\/p>\n
The framers of the Constitution were realists. They added \u201cemoluments\u201d clauses forbidding the President and other federal officials from accepting gifts, payments, or titles from foreign governments. \u201cEmoluments\u201d is just an 18th century word for \u201cbribe\u201d and the framers knew that bribes compromised good, ethical governance.<\/p>\n
They also decided, however, that conflict-of-interest rules shouldn\u2019t be strictly applied to presidents because they would hamstring their ability to do their jobs well. So an honour code has governed how presidents in the modern era conduct their affairs from the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
In his first term and now in his second, Trump has routinely made end-runs around disclosure and conflicts-of-interest practices that his predecessors all observed. His family business has done quite well along the way. The reputations of the presidency and America, as well as sound policymaking, have suffered.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump has been completely transparent when his family travels for business reasons. They don\u2019t do so in secret,\u201d said Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche, when ABC News asked him on Sunday about Trump\u2019s UAE deals. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing unprecedented about the Trump Organisation going out and trying to make investments that basically all will come back to the American people and jobs in this country. And so this idea that there\u2019s something untoward or unprecedented is just a repeated story that isn\u2019t true.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s absolutely true that Trump has hung a for-sale sign on the Oval Office at a scale and frequency that is untoward and unprecedented. It\u2019s also true that a Republican-controlled Congress and the courts are unlikely to do a thing about it.<\/p>\n
This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.<\/p>\n
Timothy L. O\u2019Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps the UAE\u2019s US$1.4t pledge was responsible for getting it done. Perhaps Sheikh Tahnoon\u2019s decision to have his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[542,2438,24928,2851,151281,151282,4177,2436,138,50215,3028,1039,15245,92492,3468,85449,2178,95658,1866,71,2678,5838,185,5978,3556,111,139,5006,69,8998,71831,7192,2437,40249,8186,12633,145,1361,165,2846,2179,19096,4719,9938,3040,1530],"class_list":["post-264966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-access","tag-administration","tag-advanced","tag-also","tag-arab","tag-aspirations","tag-beijing","tag-biden","tag-business","tag-cement","tag-chip","tag-chips","tag-concerned","tag-cuttingedge","tag-deal","tag-dhabi","tag-donald","tag-emirates","tag-find","tag-from","tag-fuel","tag-help","tag-is","tag-might","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-position","tag-rebuffed","tag-risk","tag-security","tag-seeking","tag-semiconductors","tag-spent","tag-technology","tag-that","tag-their","tag-them","tag-trump","tag-trumps","tag-uae","tag-united","tag-us","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}