Government ethics experts are already raising alarms about former President Donald Trump's business dealings with Oman, and New York Times reporter Eric Lipton said on Tuesday that the arrangement Trump has forged is truly without precedent.
Writing on Twitter, Lipton broke down what makes this particular Trump deal particularly troublesome.
"As a NYT reporter, I've been investigating Trump family international deals since 2016. India, Indonesia, Philippines, Turkey, Panama," he wrote. "I have never seen anything like the Oman deal, [regarding] the potential for a conflict of interest."
What makes the deal such a giant red flag, argues Lipton, is that the land being used to build the Trump real estate project in the country is actually owned by the government of Oman.
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Added to this, notes Lipton, "the developer, Dar al Arkan, is a Saudi real-estate company with close ties to the Saudi royal family," which has also put large investments into Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's private equity firm.
"Oman is enormously important player in the Middle East," Lipton adds. "Close ties with Saudi Arabia and Iran. US has sold F-16s/other military equipment. It is now involved in negotiations between US and Iran. [Imagine] adding a multi-billion real-estate deal to that mix as a president decides policy."
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