# Dar Global **Dar Global** is the international arm of Saudi Arabia's **Dar Al Arkan**, one of the kingdom's largest developers. Dar Al Arkan owns about 88% of it. It is the **[[Trump Organization]]'s main Gulf partner**, the private company whose name sits on most of the Trump-branded projects announced across Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the UAE since 2022. It was founded in 2017, is headquartered in Dubai, and is run by CEO Ziad El Chaar. In February 2023 it became the first Saudi company listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. By 2025, Trump-branded projects made up about 18% of its portfolio. The parent company's chairman and co-founder, **Yousef Al Shelash**, is the relationship behind the deals. [[Eric Trump]] has called him "truly... a member of the Trump family." Al Shelash has described it as "purely a business relationship." ## The projects | Project | Where | Announced | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | Trump International Golf Club and Trump Villas, AIDA | Muscat, Oman | 2022 | The first deal. Trump earned $7.85M in licensing fees from it between 2021 and early 2024 (Forbes). The site is on government-owned land with the tourism ministry involved (see [[Trump Brand Licensing Model]]). | | Trump Tower Jeddah | Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | Dec 2024 | About $533M | | Trump Tower Dubai | Dubai, UAE | 2024–25 | About $1B | | Trump International Golf Club and Villas, Simaisma | Qatar | April–May 2025 | The partner is [[Qatari Diar]], a Qatari sovereign-fund subsidiary. See [[Qatar Simaisma Golf Deal]]. | | Trump Plaza Jeddah | Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | Sept 29, 2025 | About $1B, a mixed-use development | | Trump International Golf Club, Wadi Safar | Diriyah, Riyadh | Jan 11, 2026 | Built with the state-owned Diriyah Company inside the $63.2B Diriyah giga-project, part of Vision 2030 | The Maldives has also been named as a Dar Global–Trump market. ## The money Trump's financial disclosures show about **$21.9 million a year in licensing fees from Dar Al Arkan and Dar Global**, in both the filing covering 2024 and the one covering 2025. The 2025 figure includes **$5.25 million** tied to the Qatar golf project. Gulf developers together paid about **$38 million** in 2025, according to The National's reading of the 927-page 2026 disclosure. The other big payer was DAMAC in the UAE. ## Why it matters Dar Global is how the [[Trump Brand Licensing Model]] works in the Gulf while Trump is president. The Trump Organization's January 2025 ethics pledge bars deals with foreign *governments* but allows deals with private foreign companies. Dar Global is a private, London-listed company. But the land under the Oman project is state-owned, the Qatar partner is a sovereign-fund subsidiary, and the Riyadh partner is the Saudi state's own development company. The private developer sits in the middle. The Trump Organization can say its counterparty is a company, while the land, the masterplans and the approvals come from governments with business before the U.S. government. That structure is what the [[Emoluments Clauses]] question is about. ## See also - [[Trump Organization]] · [[Trump Brand Licensing Model]] · [[Eric Trump]] - [[Qatar Simaisma Golf Deal]] · [[Qatari Diar]] · [[Qatari Influence]] - [[Emoluments Clauses]] · [[Trump Corruption News Log]] · [[Trump Family Corruption Ecosystem]] · [[Saudi Arabia]]