Oman deal ties Trump’s business and politics

A billboard advertises the planned Trump International Golf Club near Muscat, Oman. Details of the former president’s agreement to work with a Saudi firm to develop a hotel and golf complex overlooking the Gulf of Oman highlight the ways his business and political roles intersect. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

ON a remote site at the edge of the Gulf of Oman, thousands of migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are at work in 40°C heat, toiling in shifts from dawn until nightfall to build a new city, a multibillion-dollar project backed by Oman’s oil-rich government that has an unusual partner: former US President Donald Trump.

Trump’s name is plastered on signs at the entrance of the project and in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel in Muscat, the nearby capital of Oman, where a team of sales agents is invoking his name to help sell luxury villas at prices of up to US$13mil, mostly targeting super-rich buyers from around the world, including from Russia, Iran and India.