At a glittering Dubai cryptocurrency conference, the Trump family’s business interests and America’s foreign policy collided in spectacular fashion.
Zach Witkoff, founder of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, announced that a $2 billion transaction between Abu Dhabi’s state-backed investment firm MGX and Binance would use World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin.
The revelation came during a panel featuring Eric Trump, who manages the family business empire while his father occupies the White House.
Presidential Profits And Emirates Partnership
This transaction represents an unprecedented entanglement between a sitting president’s private business and foreign government funds. The deal effectively channels money from a UAE government-backed entity into a company that benefits the Trump family financially.
With Eric Trump’s concurrent announcement of plans for a Trump-branded hotel and tower in Dubai, and President Trump’s upcoming state visit to the region, the lines between diplomatic relations and business development have become remarkably blurred.
“We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us,” declared Witkoff, whose father Steve serves as White House envoy to the Middle East. “It’s only the beginning.”
Crypto Conflicts And Connections
The Dubai announcement isn’t just about money—it’s about influence. The Trump family crypto venture now has formal business connections with MGX, led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who serves as the UAE’s national security adviser and recently met with President Trump in Washington.
Simultaneously, the deal creates ties with Binance, a company under US government oversight since admitting to federal money-laundering violations in 2023.
The conflicts extend to the very panel where the announcement was made. Joining Witkoff and Eric Trump was Justin Sun, a Chinese-born billionaire who invested $75 million in World Liberty’s cryptocurrency. Sun is currently facing SEC charges—charges that were paused for settlement negotiations after Trump took office.
Ethics experts have long warned about the dangers of presidential conflicts of interest, but the World Liberty venture takes these concerns to unprecedented heights. Unlike previous presidents who placed their assets in blind trusts or divested from business operations, Trump has maintained visible connections to his family enterprises while simultaneously making policy decisions that could benefit those same companies.
For the Trump family business, the MGX-Binance deal represents a potential windfall. Stablecoin issuers like World Liberty make money by investing deposits they receive—and $2 billion in deposits could generate tens of millions annually for the Trump family and their partners. As Witkoff proclaimed from the Dubai stage, he expects the World Liberty stablecoin to grow to “many billions in market cap.”
When Witkoff suggested visitors might someday use USD1 at the Four Seasons in Abu Dhabi, Eric Trump quickly corrected him: “You’re not going to be walking into the Four Seasons using USD1. You’re going to be walking into the Trump International Hotel and Tower.”
The message was clear: in Trump’s America, presidential power and family profit have become two sides of the same golden coin.