Over the last year, as Donald Trump and Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman conducted nuclear negotiations, Trump’s private business interests moved on a parallel track.

The deal: a Trump-branded hotel, golf and residential project inside a Saudi development helmed by the crown prince. Hints of the arrangement have emerged at various points over the last two years. Only now is the fuller picture coming into view.

In December 2024, one month after Trump’s election, a Saudi firm named Dar Global announced that it would launch two Trump-branded developments in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city.

Six months later, President Trump embarked on a major international trip as he settled into his second term. He flew into Riyadh on May 13, 2025, escorted by a fleet of Saudi F-15 fighter jets. Prince Mohammed greeted him on a purple carpet at the tarmac. Later, Trump joined a lunch with a lineup of Saudi and American businessmen, including Yousef Al Shelash, chairman of the parent company to Dar Global, the firm that had announced deals in Riyadh with the Trump Organization. Jerry Inzerillo was there, too. He runs the Diriyah Company, the crown-prince-chaired developer behind the massive project on the edge of Riyadh.

That evening, Trump went to Diriyah, the ancestral seat of the Saudi state. The production was not subtle: Men on Arabian horses lined the road,........

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