Breaking down the Trump Organization’s Qatar golf course deal

In May 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as part of a Middle East trip, a claim circulated online that the Trump Organization was building a golf course in Qatar.

For example, one X user wrote (archived): “The Trump Organization will build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, its first project there since Trump returned to the White House. The deal includes beachside villas and an 18-hole course. Qatar, really?”

The rumor gained prominence on the back of reports that Qatar would give the Trump administration a Boeing 747-8 jet for use as Air Force One.

Other examples of the claim appeared elsewhere on X (archived) and on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Readers also searched our site for information about the rumor.

It is true that the Trump Organization partnered with Saudi Arabian and Qatari real estate development companies (archived) DarGlobal and Qatari Diar to build a Trump-branded golf club and luxury villas near Doha, Qatar. According to a company news release, DarGlobal would “develop” the golf course to be part of a larger site managed by Qatari Diar, which is funded by the Qatari government and led by a government minister. It was unclear exactly how involved the Trump Organization would be with construction.

A Trump Organization spokesperson told The Associated Press that the company’s deal was with the Saudi business, DarGlobal, not Qatari Diar. If the deal involved Qatari Diar it would likely face more scrutiny than one with DarGlobal because it could break a January 2025 commitment by the Trump Organization not to enter deals with foreign governments while Trump was in office. 

Snopes reached out to the Trump Organization, Qatari Diar and DarGlobal to ask about the relationship between the three companies regarding the Trump International Golf Club deal, who would carry out construction and whether the president participated in talks about the project. We await their replies.

Some readers searching our site asked if it was the president himself who decided to build the golf course. It was unclear whether Trump had any influence over his company’s decision to license a Trump golf club in Qatar. The president’s assets in the Trump Organization are held in the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is overseen by his son Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are both currently executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization after their father handed over the reins to the company in 2017. 

According to announcements by Qatari Diar and DarGlobal, Trump International Golf Club will consist of an 18-hole golf course, clubhouse and “branded villas.” It will be part of the Simaisima Project, an 8 million-square-meter development on Qatar’s eastern coast. The Qatari Ministry of Municipality launched the project in June 2024.

Uncertainty over president’s involvement with Trump Organization

Whether Trump might have influenced the Trump Organization’s decision to license the Qatari golf course was difficult to ascertain given that it is not possible to fully know the president’s relationship with the company.

After Trump won his first presidential election in 2016, his lawyers reportedly said he would place his assets in a trust while in office and remove himself from the company’s management. According to online news media outlet Politico, his legal team said he would have “no involvement whatsoever” in the businesses.

A Trump Organization white paper released on Jan. 10, 2025, said that arrangement would remain active for Trump’s second presidency. Donald Trump Jr. manages the trust, whose “settlor and sole beneficiary” is Donald Trump.

The president would have “no involvement” in the management of the Trump Organization, according to the white paper, but he would have “limited access” to the company’s financial information. It was unclear how these stipulations would be enforced, given that the company, in Trump’s absence, is led by his sons. The white paper also promised “no new transactions with foreign governments.” It was unclear how the Trump Organization’s licensing deal, in which a Saudi developer would build a Trump-branded government on a site managed by the government-led and funded Qatari Diar real estate company, fits into this commitment.

Some past presidents have sold their assets and formed a blind trust — a trust managed by a person other than the trustee who has complete discretion over trust management. With a blind trust, used by past presidents including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the assets held in the trust cannot become a conflict of interest for the trustee because they do not know what is in it or how it is being invested.

A revocable trust, however, allows Trump as a settlor to change the terms of the trust or cancel it at any time. The revocable trust also means Trump still knows what assets he holds and how they might be affected by decisions he makes. Trump’s lawyers dismissed the possibility of using a blind trust in 2017, saying it was not possible with an operating business.

Snopes previously reported on claims that Trump called Qatar “funders of terrorism” in 2017 and that Pam Bondi used to lobby for Qatar in the U.S.

Sources