Saudis, Emirates and Qatar make deals for high tech by paying the Trumps.
Who benefits besides Trump? Corruption destroys Nations. Look at Africa. When despots are paid off, nothing trickles to the well being of their people.
But as these front doors to China close, back doors are opening.
A technology trail now leads from the United States to oil-producing nations and then to China.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates have been granting Trump personal favors. Their presumed goal is to get access to American technology.
Qatar has given Trump a luxury jet, a “palace in the sky.” (It’s to him personally. No subsequent president will be able to use it.)
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has invested $2 billion in Jared Kushner’s private equity firm. And Dar Global, a Saudi luxury developer, is partnering with the Trump Organization on at least three projects across the Middle East, including a Trump Tower Jeddah, another in Riyadh, and a Trump International Hotel and luxury golf development in Oman.
Trump’s family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, recently announcedthat its so-called “stablecoin” — with Trump’s likeness all over it — will be used by the United Arab Emirates to make a $2 billion business deal with Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. The deal will generate hundreds of millions of dollars more for the Trump family.
What do Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE get from all these deals? All are seeking to diversify their economies away from oil by boosting their technology sectors.
Trump is granting them greater access to advanced technologies from the United States, including advanced semiconductors from companies like Nvidia and AMD.
Yet at the same time, these nations are strengthening their strategic partnerships with China in artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and quantum information technology.
They’ve entered into joint ventures with Chinese counterparts for producing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and AI-related projects, including the development of smart cities and AI-powered infrastructure.
Here’s another back door to China: Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who’s based in Hong Kong.
Sun is the largest holder of Trump’s $TRUMP memecoin. His $23-million investment has put him into the exclusive circle of investors who were invited to a private VIP dinner with Trump on May 22.
Until Trump’s election win, the 34-year-old entrepreneur was in the sights of U.S. authorities and persona non grata in much of the U.S. crypto industry. His company. Tron, which operates a blockchain network with the same name, has been a popular channel for crypto’s criminal fraternity to move funds.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network wrote in a private 2023 report that Tron was “growing in popularity among illicit actors.” By last year, more than half of all illegal crypto activity — some $26 billion — took place on the network.
Sun faced charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in 2023 accused him of fraudulently manipulating the market for Tron’s TRX token. The Justice Department had been investigating Sun for suspected financial crimes, people familiar with the case said. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan requested information from Sun in 2021 and continued gathering evidence through at least 2023, some of the people said, causing him to avoid travel to the U.S. over concerns about a possible arrest warrant.
But now? The SEC asked a court in February to pause its lawsuit, and most of the other investigations are on the way to being closed.
Is it possible that Sun’s Tron network will become a means for China to move funds in pursuit of advanced technology from the United States? Of course.
While America’s front doors are closing to China, back doors are opening in the form of personal payoffs to Trump that result in alternative routes for America’s advanced technology to reach China.
Officially, Trump is closing America’s front doors so China doesn’t get our critical technologies. Unofficially, he’s opening back doors to China that give it access to these technologies and make him and his family even richer.
What’s being sold? Who’s being sold out?