The plane Qatar gifted to Donald Trump was just the beginning. Serbia and Albania have recently sought Trump’s closeness, each signing luxury property deals with his family. Soon, the incentive to outdo each other with bribes could spread to geopolitical rivalries around the world. (First published in The Atlantic, July 10, 2025).
Casey Michel, The Atlantic
The White House has seen its fair share of shady dealings. Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law used family connections to orchestrate an insider trading scheme that crashed the gold market. Warren Harding’s secretary of the interior secretly leased land to oil barons, who paid him handsomely for it. To finance Richard Nixon’s reelection, corporate executives brought suitcases full of cash to the capital.
But Americans have never seen anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have been practicing in recent months. Its cruelty, scale, and variety defy historical comparison — even in a country with a centuries-old history of fraud, including, of course, Trump’s first term. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of the first – like the stays of foreign regimes at Trump’s Washington hotel or the (defunct plan) to hold the G7 summit at his Florida hotel – seem like innocent things.
Trump 2.0 has only just begun, but it already represents the height of American kleptocracy. And there is good reason to think it will get worse.
Almost every week, the Trump family seems to find a new way to profit from the presidency. The Trump Organization has brokered an ever-long list of real estate projects with autocratic regimes, including a Trump Tower in Saudi Arabia, a Trump Hotel in Oman and a Trump Golf Club in Vietnam. “We are the hottest brand in the world right now,” Eric Trump recently declared. In May, Qatar gifted the White House a $400 million jet — a gift that felt like a bribe, but one that Trump accepted without hesitation.
And that’s just on the international front. Domestically, Trump has used unsubstantiated complaints to attack the media, striking deals that appear to be extortion. Last year, he accused “60 Minutes” of inserting misleading language into an interview with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Legal experts found the claim weak. Rather than face a lawsuit, however, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, which will subsidize Trump’s future presidential library and cover his legal fees. After an equally dubious lawsuit, ABC sent $15 million to the library’s fund and issued a “statement of regret.”
In addition, the president has marketed Trump perfume, Trump sneakers, and Trump phones—shamelessly exploiting the prestige of the presidency to boost his family’s income. And then there’s cryptocurrency: the $TRUMP meme, paid dinners for investors, and the temporary halt to criminal prosecution of a “crypto kingpin” who bought $30 million in Trump-backed tokens.
“The law is completely on my side,” Trump said after his election in 2016, when asked about the mix of financial matters with his new job. “The president cannot have a conflict of interest.”
That statement is disturbingly close to the truth today. Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last year, Trump enjoys presumed immunity from prosecution for any “official act.” He has appointed Pam Bondin as attorney general, who seems willing to carry out his every order, no matter the cost to the Justice Department. He has dismantled independent institutions that investigated economic crime networks, groups that dealt with kleptocracy, prosecutors who prosecuted public corruption, and regulations that cracked down on international money laundering.
The list goes on. The Treasury Department effectively dissolved the new registry of shell companies (businesses that appear legal on the outside but are actually engaged in illegal activities). The Justice Department disbanded the task forces that seized stolen assets. The administration has blocked the implementation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—a cornerstone of the U.S. anti-corruption regime. In short, Trump has dismantled a whole web of agencies, laws, and regulations that prevented any kind of kleptocracy—including that which enriches a sitting president.
Foreign agents are watching as the U.S. anti-corruption regime crumbles. They see a tremendous opportunity and know they must act quickly to seize it. Supporting Trump and his family has proven to be one of the fastest ways to secure favorable policies. Are U.S. sanctions hurting your business? Consider building a Trump resort. Will you remain America’s favorite? Invest in Trump-backed cryptocurrency.
This whole scam is likely to accelerate. Take the Qatari jet, for example. The gift caused a stir in the US, but also in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which saw their regional rival gaining influence over Trump. Don’t see the jet as the culmination of presidential greed – but rather as the new starting point for the deals to come. Any Middle Eastern dictator who wants to surpass Qatar in America’s eyes now knows how much he or she will have to pay.
In India, oligarchs and government allies are getting involved in Trump’s property projects at a rapid pace, while Pakistan just announced a national cryptocurrency reserve, signing a “letter of intent” to partner with a Trump-backed group. Serbia and Albania have recently sought Trump’s closeness, each signing luxury property deals with his family. Soon, the incentive to outbid each other with bribes could spill over into geopolitical rivalries around the world.
Perhaps most troubling is the tacit permission Trump has given foreign powers to directly fund American politicians. That was the precedent he set when he forced prosecutors to drop the case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was accused of soliciting campaign funds from Turkey. “Elections are won with money,” Adams said. “Everything else is a decoration.” Perhaps the president would say the same thing.
Foreign regimes are increasingly realizing how far their money can go in Trump’s America. The highest bidder has never had more to gain.
Casey Michel is the author of “Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World.” (A2 Televizion)
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