Financial disclosures show President Trump's businesses made approximately $2 billion in income during 2025 — triple the prior year — with Gulf entities contributing around $300 million directly. The incoming Democratic House majority has declared these Middle East entanglements their top investigative priority, and the numbers explain why. The largest single source of new wealth flows through World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company co-founded by the Trump and Witkoff families in 2024. Steve Witkoff serves simultaneously as Trump's Middle East envoy. A substantial stake was sold in January 2026 to an investment firm backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security advisor and brother of its president. Five months later, the US approved UAE access to advanced AI chips over national security objections. A late October lawsuit alleges a Tahnoon-chaired UAE fund spent roughly $2 billion on a World Liberty cryptocurrency to inflate the company's value. The real estate pipeline is similarly entangled. Trump reported $59.5 million in foreign real estate licensing income in 2025 — ten times the 2023 figure — with nearly two-thirds originating from Gulf projects. Saudi and Emirati developers with close ties to their respective royal families have signed deals for Trump-branded golf resorts, hotels, mansions, and towers across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and the Maldives. These same governments are simultaneously pursuing US investments, government permits, and favorable diplomatic terms. Then there is Qatar's gift of a luxury jet worth approximately $400 million, delivered in May 2025. The plane's destination remains contested — Trump has suggested it will go to his presidential library foundation, but speculation persists he may keep it for personal use. The library itself, a non-profit, has received over $100 million traced by CBS from lawsuits and corporate donors. Senator Elizabeth Warren has flagged it for investigation. The Board of Peace, created in September 2025 to facilitate Gaza reconstruction, presents perhaps the most structurally unusual arrangement. Trump chairs it indefinitely; permanent board seats cost member countries $1 billion. Four months after establishment, the World Bank account designated for its funds was empty. Money had instead been deposited into a private JP Morgan account with no oversight. Its legal status was changed to an international NGO — a move attorney Zaha Hassan of the Carnegie Endowment warned may aim to avoid congressional oversight entirely. Jared Kushner's role adds another layer. Operating as a volunteer envoy — a status that exempts him from standard government ethics scrutiny — Kushner has been deeply involved in Gaza and Iran negotiations while reportedly raising billions for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners. A CNN investigation in early October detailed links between Affinity and Israeli military manufacturers. Investigative journalist Matthew Cole's book "Prince and Thieves" alleges Kushner was given access to bank accounts containing roughly $2 billion by the UAE to shape US Middle East policy. Kushner denies the allegations and has threatened legal action. The structural question is not whether any single deal is illegal — that is what investigations determine. The question is whether US foreign policy in the Middle East can be evaluated on its merits when the president, his envoy, and his son-in-law all have billions flowing from the countries those policies serve. Representative Robert Garcia, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has already named the Trump family his committee's top investigative priority.
