The president and first lady board Air Force One on the last day of his first term. Out of office, he repositioned his business to profit from politics.Photo by Pete Marovich - Pool/Getty ImagesThe president’s international licensing business, which looked nearly dead a few years ago, generated $61 million in 2025, according to a financial disclosure report released last week. That’s up an estimated 30% from 2024 and 900% from 2023. No country provided more last year than the United Arab Emirates, where Trump collected $23 million through deals with two developers. He generated $10 million in India and $9 million in in Saudi Arabia. Deals in Qatar, Romania and Vietnam delivered $5 million apiece. Representatives of the Trump Organization did not respond to questions about the dealmaking. “There are no conflicts of interest," White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement. Even Trump once acknowledged concerns with foreign entanglements, promising to strike no new deals overseas during his first term. But he reversed course upon returning to the White House, and money poured in—much of it from the Middle East. Trump did his first deal in the region about 20 years ago, partnering with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem of the United Arab Emirates. They shared a common connection, Jeffrey Epstein, who emailed Trump’s partner around that time that he “loved the torture video.” Representatives of the sultan’s company, from which he resigned earlier this year, did not respond to a request for comment. Trump and the sultan once planned to build the tallest building on Dubai’s palm-tree shaped island. After the financial crisis derailed the market, Trump’s partner reportedly walked away from the deal. Trump found a new friend, billionaire Hussain Sajwani, who remains close to the president today. Their ambitions began modestly, with a deal to brand a golf course on the outskirts of Dubai. That agreement delivered several million to Trump over roughly 10 years, including $1.3 million in 2025. Politics seemed to supercharge the partnership. Trump claimed, days before taking office in 2017, that he had turned down $2 billion to do a series of deals with Sajwani, explaining “I don’t want to take advantage of something.” Until he did. In 2021, Trump left office with a tarnished image and a depleted deal pipeline. On November 14, 2022, one day before he announced his third presidential campaign, Trump finalized a new deal. Ziad El Chaar, one of Sajwani’s old deputies, had moved to a Saudi development firm, Dar Al Arkan. The Saudi outfit agreed to put Trump’s name on a hotel-and-golf project in Oman. As Trump crept closer to the White House, more deals appeared, extending the Trump empire into Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In 2025, Sajwani added two more agreements in Abu Dhabi. Foreign AlliesThe president collected $61 million from licensing deals in 10 foreign countries the year he returned to the White House.In India, Trump has friends old and new. Among the fresh faces are Mukesh Ambani, the industrialist worth an estimated $90 billion. Ambani’s firm, which did not respond to a request for comment, paid one of Trump’s companies $10 million in 2024 and a second company $1.5 million in 2025. In February, news emerged that the Trump administration granted Ambani’s business a license to buy Venezuelan oil. The next month, Trump touted an investment that Ambani’s firm made to support a Texas refinery development, in which his son Donald Trump Jr. reportedly holds a stake. Don Jr. and his brother Eric, who now run the Trump Organization on a day-to-day basis, spent years flying around the world pursuing deals while receiving little or no equity in them. But things changed recently. The president’s latest financial disclosure report shows that his family members—presumably Eric and Don Jr.—now hold 20% of his new licensing deals. It’s a meaningful cut, especially when business is booming.