Trump’s Real Priority: Building a Billion-Dollar Empire While America Burns
He isn't serving the people. He’s serving his brand, one resort, token, and deal at a time.
This is an investigative opinion piece based on public reporting and sourced facts. Dig in, ask questions, and always do your own due diligence.
I'm a lawyer. I'm a citizen. And I’m pissed. The man sitting in the Oval Office isn’t leading, he’s looting. He’s treating the presidency like a side hustle, using our trust, our government, and our country as tools to grow his bank account. And the worst part? He’s getting away with it.
It’s 2025, and President Donald Trump is once again seated in the Oval Office, only this time, he’s unabashedly treating it as a launchpad for personal profit. While everyday Americans worry about paying bills or affording college, our president is busy brokering deals to expand his family empire and rewriting rules in his favor. This personal greed is a brazen form of self-dealing and corruption that strikes at the heart of our democracy.
None of this chaos is accidental. The social media outbursts, the petty feuds, the made-for-TV drama, it’s all smoke and mirrors. Trump is the master of distraction, and every headline he creates is designed to keep our eyes off what really matters: the billions he’s quietly building through global real estate deals and crypto schemes. While the country argues over whatever crisis he’s manufactured this week, he and his family are signing contracts, cashing tokens, and consolidating power.
That’s what this article is about. Pulling back the curtain and showing you exactly what’s happening while we’re being told to look the other way.
Building a Real Estate Empire on U.S. Influence
I remember seeing a picture of a grinning Eric Trump, standing under the harsh Middle Eastern sun, posing with Qatari investors beside a golden shovel at a groundbreaking ceremony. The project they’re celebrating is no ordinary real estate venture, it’s a sprawling Trump-branded luxury resort rising from Qatari soil, made possible only because Eric’s father holds the highest office in the United States. In another photo-op a few days earlier, the President’s son stood in Dubai announcing an 80-story Trump Tower set to pierce the skyline.
Across the region, similar deals are blooming: new Trump towers planned in Saudi Arabia’s biggest cities, an extravagant hotel and golf course in Oman, and now Qatar’s first Trump International Golf Club with ultra-luxe villas. All these projects bear the Trump name, and all have been green-lit after Trump regained the presidency.
It’s not a coincidence. Donald Trump’s adult sons, nominally in charge of the Trump Organization, have been flying to Riyadh, Doha, and Dubai incessantly in recent weeks, drumming up business on the heels of their father’s electoral comeback. They’re effectively using the Presidential seal as a marketing logo, leveraging their access and clout to cut massive real estate deals with foreign developers and even sovereign wealth funds.
Sure, on paper the Trump Organization promises it won’t do deals directly with foreign governments. But in reality, many of these “private” partnerships are with companies backed by those governments. The Qatari resort, for instance, is bankrolled by Qatar’s national wealth fund. The Saudi projects are in tandem with a firm led by a billionaire developer who’s been cozy with Trump for years. By exploiting this thin ethical loophole, Trump and his family are expanding their global brick-and-mortar empire right under our noses.
What’s the scale of this empire-building? Try to wrap your head around it: The Qatar mega-development alone is valued at approximately $3 billion, complete with an 18‑hole golf course and beachside villas. In the United Arab Emirates, they’re gearing up to break ground on one of Dubai’s tallest skyscrapers, emblazoned with “TRUMP” in gold. In Saudi Arabia, two gleaming towers in Riyadh will carry his brand, and a lavish waterfront complex is underway in Jeddah.
Down in Oman, plans are moving forward for a luxury Trump hotel resort perched on a seaside cliff. We’ve never seen a U.S. president, sitting or former, expand his business footprint on this scale while in office. This is using the presidency as a private business development office, full stop.
I’ve discussed different aspects of this activity in different articles here on Substack. One that relates directly to this topic is The Presidency for Sale: Trump's Blatant Emoluments Violations Are Gutting Our Democracy.
It’s All About Distraction and Chaos
How is Trump getting away with it? The answer is distraction and chaos. Day to day, the news cycle is dominated by the President’s latest provocative tweet, partisan feud, or sudden crisis. It’s reality TV all over again, and we’re the distracted audience. Meanwhile, behind that smokescreen, Trump’s companies quietly ink agreements and licensing deals overseas. Even Trump’s official state travel doubles as self-promotion.
His very first foreign trip this term wasn’t to a longtime ally like Canada or the UK, it was a tour of Gulf monarchies that just so happen to be signing checks with his family name on them. In Saudi Arabia, he boasted of securing massive investment commitments (some of which directly involve partners in his own ventures). In Qatar, he accepted a gilded Boeing 747 jumbo jet as a “gift” from the emir, a jaw-dropping gesture that set off alarm bells for ethics experts, but barely a peep from Trump’s inner circle. This is presidential power as a bargaining chip: he’s effectively auctioning off face time and U.S. support to regimes that will enrich the Trump brand.
Make no mistake, this isn’t business as usual or “networking.” It’s a profound abuse of public trust. As a lawyer, I can’t help but recall the Constitution’s emoluments clause, an anti-corruption safeguard designed to prevent exactly what we’re seeing now. Foreign kings and moguls are showering the president’s private ventures with money, and in return, they surely expect favorable treatment from the U.S. government.
Perhaps it’s a blind spot in our laws (or a failure to enforce them) that allows Trump to shrug and say, “It’s all in a trust under my kids’ control.” But let’s be real: when your children are making deals that pour millions into your family’s coffers, and you’re simultaneously negotiating policy with those same countries, the conflict of interest is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Even some conservative commentators, people who might normally cheer free enterprise, are unsettled, warning that U.S. foreign policy could now be guided by what pads the Trump family’s wallet.
Who loses in this scenario? We all do. Our government’s priorities can shift (even unconsciously) to favor places and people who feed Trump’s bank account, rather than what’s best for the American people. And every day spent greasing the wheels of Trump’s global projects is a day not spent addressing issues back home.
While the President was busy rubbing elbows with Gulf billionaires to sell condos and membership fees for future Trump-branded clubs, American families saw no relief from the rising cost of living or the shortage of good jobs. The chaos that Trump sows in the media isn’t just a side effect, it’s his shield. If we’re too numbed or divided to scrutinize his deals, he can get away with nearly anything. And so far, he is.
Dismantling Crypto Safeguards for Personal Gain
The real estate hustle is only half the story. Trump isn’t just building hotels and golf courses; he’s also busy tearing down rules in the financial world, specifically, in the cryptocurrency market, to benefit himself and his friends. It sounds like a plot from a political thriller: the President of the United States gutting financial regulations while he and his family quietly invest in the very markets he’s unshackling. But that is exactly what’s happening.
Let’s start back on the campaign trail. Crypto industry bigwigs saw the writing on the wall: if Trump returned to power, the aggressive oversight of digital currency that marked the previous administration would come to a screeching halt. So they bet on Trump early. Large donations from cryptocurrency executives and companies flowed into Trump’s campaign and his inaugural celebrations. Think of it as an advance payment, and it paid off handsomely for them.
Within weeks of taking office, President Trump basically put the regulatory cops on the sidelines. His new Securities and Exchange Commission quietly dropped several high-profile investigations into crypto firms that had been accused of defrauding investors or flouting the law. Ongoing lawsuits against one major exchange were suddenly withdrawn without explanation. The message was unmistakable: under Trump, the crypto industry has free rein. Scams and schemes that a year ago might have drawn federal injunctions now get a wink and a nod from Washington.
The details are jaw-dropping. Remember Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, which had been under the SEC’s microscope for allegedly facilitating money laundering? Trump’s SEC abruptly moved to dismiss the case. Other enforcement actions targeting big crypto players were similarly derailed or quietly settled on very forgiving terms. He even pushed through a law to nullify new tax reporting rules for cryptocurrency transactions, making it easier for major players to operate out of sight of the IRS. It’s as if Trump took the referees off the field just as he and his allies started their own game.
Why would he do that? Because the Trump family was simultaneously staking an enormous personal claim in the crypto arena. The conflict of interest here isn’t just stark, it’s blinding. Even as Trump was stripping away oversight, the Trumps launched a barrage of their own crypto ventures. It’s as if they looked at the booming crypto market and decided to grab a piece of everything.
There’s a Trump-branded cryptocurrency exchange, grandly named World Liberty Financial, which rolled out its own digital token. (If that name sounds like something from a cheap spy novel, the reality is worse: this company is partially owned by Donald Trump himself, even as he’s supposed to be regulating the economy impartially.) There’s Trump Media’s big pivot to crypto, the folks behind Truth Social launched a fintech offshoot called “TruthFi,” aimed at offering crypto investment funds and trading services to the public. Essentially, the same social media platform where Trump blasts his opponents is now doubling as a crypto marketplace encouraging users to invest in Trump-approved assets.
And speaking of assets, guess who’s suddenly in the Bitcoin mining business? Trump’s two eldest sons. They helped found a company called American Bitcoin to churn out digital coins from vast computer farms. In a flashy Wall Street move, they’ve announced plans to take American Bitcoin public on the Nasdaq, with Eric Trump installed as a top executive. The catch: after a fancy merger deal, Eric, Don Jr., and their partners would retain roughly 98% ownership of the company. In other words, the family is setting itself up to potentially make a fortune from America’s crypto craze, a craze their father is fueling through policy decisions.
Perhaps the most outrageous of all, though, are the so-called meme coins. In an astonishing display of hubris, Donald Trump launched his very own cryptocurrency, bluntly named $TRUMP, just days before taking the oath of office again. Imagine it: the incoming President of the United States hawking a personal crypto coin to the public, urging everyone to “get in now.” As ridiculous as it sounds, it sparked a speculative frenzy.
The $TRUMP coin’s price tripled in its first hours of trading as loyalists and speculators rushed to buy a piece of the president’s magic. It then dropped approximately 83 percent from its peak, wiping out some $2 billion in investor value. Fast forward to today and you’ll find that with the $TRUMP Coin, around 600,000 wallets collectively lost approximately $3.9 billion after buying in at peak prices.
Not to be outdone, First Lady Melania Trump introduced a token of her own, the $MELANIA coin, essentially turning a side role into another money-making venture. This coin also plunged roughly 90–96% from its peak.
The First Couple had effectively monetized their return to power by creating digital currencies named after themselves. I wrote about both of these Coins in The $TRUMP and $MELANIA Crypto Scandal: How a Presidential Meme Coin Cost Investors Billions and The Trump Crypto Grift: $1.1 Billion for Insiders While 764,000 Everyday Investors Get Wiped Out.
In short, meme‑coin investors have seen billions evaporate, while early insiders, broadly tied to the Trump ecosystem, extracted hundreds of millions through trading fees and selective token dumps.
The ethical lines didn’t just blur; they evaporated. President Trump is effectively wearing two hats, one as the nation’s chief policymaker, another as a crypto entrepreneur, and using each role to benefit the other. I’m floored by the audacity.
Normally, if a CEO of a public company secretly traded stocks in their own industry based on upcoming policy changes, they’d be hauled off in handcuffs. But here we have a president openly influencing an industry while his family and cronies profit off that insider knowledge. Conflict of interest doesn’t even begin to describe it. No wonder government ethics veterans are shouting from the rooftops that this may be the worst instance of presidential self-dealing in our lifetimes.
Let’s talk about how this affects regular people, because it’s not just happening in a vacuum. By dismantling oversight and encouraging wild speculation, Trump has effectively removed the safety net from under everyday Americans who might be tempted into the crypto craze. Those SEC investigations that got buried were meant to expose scams and protect small investors. Now the scammers have free rein.
Already we’ve seen some everyday folks get hurt. One of the fringe meme coins that Trumpworld hyped (not even one of the “official” Trump coins, just something a Trump ally was pushing) ended up being a pump-and-dump. Its value surged on hype and then plummeted to nearly zero, wiping out many amateur investors who bought in late. People lost money they couldn’t afford to lose, and thanks to the new anything-goes climate, they have little recourse. It’s the Wild West now, and the sheriff has left town.
Meanwhile, guess who’s making a killing? The insiders. Those with connections, early information, or preferential access have been raking in fortunes. As I mentioned earlier and as a further example, let’s look at the details around the $MELANIA coin launch: blockchain sleuths noticed that a handful of digital wallets bought massive amounts of $MELANIA tokens just minutes before the First Lady publicly announced her coin. When the price skyrocketed after the announcement, those wallets cashed out, netting almost $100 million in profit. It doesn’t take a genius to suspect that was insider trading by people in the know (possibly friends or associates of the Trumps).
If this were the stock market, it would be illegal. But in the crypto world, especially one where regulators have been told to stand down, it’s extremely hard to police, let alone prosecute. This is the direct result of Trump’s see-no-evil approach: the rich and connected can exploit their advantage and walk away even richer, while regular Americans are left holding the bag.
The lengths to which Trump has gone to monetize the presidency via crypto are truly mind-boggling. He’s even hosted a private dinner for the biggest holders of $TRUMP coin, essentially offering presidential access as a prize for those who invested heavily in his personal currency. Imagine being an ordinary citizen taking your kids on a White House tour and finding out that, while you waited in line, a crypto mogul got a private audience with the President simply because he owns a lot of $TRUMP tokens. It’s beyond parody, yet it happened.
And there more. One of the top token holders in attendance was a foreign crypto entrepreneur who had been facing a U.S. fraud lawsuit, a case that, not surprisingly, got put on the back burner soon after. These aren’t even thinly veiled quid pro quos; they are glaring, neon-lit exchanges of money for influence.
Trump’s crypto entanglements have even shaped official U.S. policy. He announced something called a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” signing an executive order for the government to stockpile Bitcoin as a matter of national interest. He claimed it was about keeping America at the forefront of financial innovation. But guess who stands to benefit directly? American Bitcoin, that mining company his family controls, and anyone else sitting on a pile of cryptocurrency.
Look, when the U.S. government starts buying up an asset, the value of that asset tends to shoot up. It’s not unlike a president in the 1800s who might have owned a gold mine and then convinced the Treasury to adopt the gold standard; his mine would become vastly more valuable. In another era, that kind of self-serving policy would spark a scandal for the ages. Under Trump, it’s sold as an “America First” strategy and hardly gets a shrug from his supporters in Congress.
From selling digital trading-card NFTs of himself, to pardoning the convicted founders of a crypto exchange (who happened to be early buyers of $TRUMP coin), to personally hyping bizarre crypto schemes on social media, Trump has built an entire ecosystem of enrichment that revolves around his presidency. This is both personal greed and systemic corruption. He has gutted the safeguards that separate private interest from public duty, and in doing so, turned our government into a family-run enterprise.
America is at a Crossroads
The story of Donald Trump in 2025 isn’t just about one man’s illicit fortune-building. It’s about whether we, as Americans, will tolerate a government that works for the profit of the powerful few while leaving the rest of us behind. The presidency is supposed to be a public trust, the one office whose occupant swears an oath to faithfully serve the nation’s interests above their own. What we’ve seen instead is a president who treats the Oval Office as a personal ATM and a deal-making den.
Let’s not mince words: this is what corruption looks like. If we witnessed a foreign leader doing all this, say, diverting public resources for private gain, cutting secret family deals with other nations, and manipulating markets to enrich himself, we’d condemn it without hesitation. We’d call that country a kleptocracy and probably sanction them for it. Now we have to confront the fact that it’s happening here at home, wrapped in the American flag and slogans about greatness. There’s nothing “great” about a commander-in-chief who is willing to sell out his office for another percentage point on his company’s profit margin.
As a lawyer, I could rattle off the laws and clauses being sidestepped or shattered and in fact I have in earlier post here on my Uncensored Objection Substack. But fundamentally, this is about right and wrong more than it is about legal technicalities. Maybe Trump’s attorneys have papered over some of these deals to technically squeak by the letter of the law. Or maybe they haven’t, and the reckoning is yet to come. Either way, even if every loophole he’s exploiting is somehow legal, it’s still profoundly wrong.
It’s wrong for the President to owe his foreign policy to foreign investors who butter his bread. It’s wrong for the President to encourage Americans to plow money into a coin he profits from, then rig the rules so he always wins and they take the hit. It’s wrong for any public servant, and especially the one in the White House, to put personal gain above the public good.
So What Can We Do?
So what can we do about it? First, we absolutely must pay attention. Don’t get sidetracked by the latest shiny object Trump throws in front of you.
We can’t let the daily drama and shock-factor headlines distract us from the quieter story of corruption unfolding behind the scenes. Turn down the noise of the latest Twitter war and follow the money. When you hear about a “great new Trump project” overseas or a “crypto innovation” coming out of the White House, question who really benefits. We owe it to ourselves to stay informed about these schemes, because sunlight is still the best disinfectant.
Second, we need to demand accountability from those in power. Our representatives in Congress should be grilling officials and issuing subpoenas as if our democracy depends on it, because it does. Ethics watchdogs and independent investigators need support and encouragement to do their jobs without fear. There are already a few brave members of Congress holding hearings on Trump’s conflicts of interest; they need to know the public cares. Support them, regardless of your party affiliation. And if your own representatives are sitting on their hands, prod them. Remind them that oversight isn’t a partisan vendetta, it’s their job.
Lastly, we have to use our democratic muscle. That means voting, yes, but also speaking out long before Election Day. The ballot box is a powerful tool, but it’s not the only one. Go to town halls and ask the hard questions. Write letters to the editor. Talk to friends and neighbors about why this matters, not in the language of left or right, but in terms of basic fairness and patriotism. Because loving your country doesn’t mean idolizing its leader; it means holding that leader accountable to the country’s values. One of those core values, since the founding of the republic, is that no one is above the law and no public office is meant for private gain.
Donald Trump loves to portray himself as the voice of the people, as someone fighting the “deep state” or the establishment on our behalf. But in truth, he’s building an establishment of one – himself – and he’s doing it at our expense. He is counting on cynicism and fatigue to keep Americans from caring. He wants us to throw up our hands and say “they’re all corrupt, nothing to be done,” because that is how corruption thrives, when good people stop paying attention.
We can’t give in to that. The White House does not belong to Donald Trump or any president. It belongs to you and me. Our tax dollars fund it, our votes lend it authority, and our trust imbues it with moral legitimacy. If that trust is violated, it’s up to us to reclaim it.
The stakes could not be higher. If we normalize what Trump is doing, we will fundamentally change the character of our republic. We’ll slide further into a reality where public office is just another means to personal profit, and faith in government, already fragile, could collapse. But I choose to believe we are not there yet.
We still have the power of the law, of institutions, and of our voices. Trump’s behavior is a wake-up call, and we need to stay wide awake. Stay vigilant. Speak out. Above all, remember that in a democracy, the people are the boss. If we demand honest leadership and refuse to settle for less, we can ensure that future presidents serve us, not the other way around. Our country, and the principles it stands for, depend on nothing less.
Mitch Jackson, Esq. | links
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