Foreign Investors and Trump Associates Leverage Proximity to the Administration to Win Sanctions Relief and Contracts

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Across Trump's second term, investigative outlets have documented a repeating dynamic in foreign affairs: parties seeking a specific U.S. policy outcome—a sanctions repeal, a lucrative contract—advance their interests by aligning financially with the president's family or the people around him, even where no explicit exchange is ever stated. Two separate investigations, one by The New York Times in Syria and one by The Guardian in Bosnia, document the same shape with different actors. All parties deny that the business ties shaped policy, and in both cases the underlying policy goals have arguments on the merits and predate this administration.

Case One: Syria — Sanctions Repeal and the Khayyat Family

On April 19, 2026, The New York Times published an investigation by reporter Eric Lipton documenting how the Syrian-born Al-Khayyat family—billionaire investors based in Qatar—leveraged proposed Trump-family business deals while lobbying Congress to permanently repeal U.S. sanctions on Syria. According to the Times, Mohamad Al-Khayyat pitched a coastal development including a Trump-branded golf course to Republican lawmakers after Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) told him in a 2025 meeting: "I know how to get the president's attention. Make it a Trump National Golf Course in Syria." At the same time, Mohamad's older brothers were negotiating a partnership with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to help finance a multibillion-dollar resort in Albania.

The White House and the Trump Organization told the Times they were not aware of the proposed Syria golf resort, and the Trump Organization said no discussions were underway. The Khayyat family also told the Times their partnership with Kushner was unrelated to the sanctions repeal effort. White House counsel David Warrington said: "President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious."

The Khayyat Family's Syrian Reconstruction Portfolio

According to the Times, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, the Khayyat family rapidly assembled an extraordinary portfolio of contracts with the new Syrian government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa:

• A $4 billion deal to rebuild Damascus International Airport into a Middle Eastern hub
• A $7 billion contract to build four natural gas-powered electric plants
• A deal to partner with U.S.-based Chevron to develop offshore natural gas drilling in the Mediterranean
• Purchases of historic homes in Damascus's old city (a UNESCO World Heritage site) for a planned tourist destination
• A coastal resort project near Latakia where the proposed Trump golf course would be built

Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Trump's special envoy to Syria, appeared alongside the Khayyats at announcements for each of these projects, the Times reported, signaling Trump administration support.

The Khayyats had previously built their fortune in Qatar, where they developed close ties to the royal family and built an artificial island filled with restaurants for the 2022 World Cup—including a Carbone Doha location where Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner dined during the tournament. That dinner initiated the relationship between the two families.

The Caesar Act and the Sanctions Repeal

The deals all depended on permanent repeal of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, which sanctioned foreign persons providing significant support to the Syrian government and specifically mandated sanctions on those engaging in Syrian reconstruction activities. International banks would not commit capital to reconstruction projects while the sanctions could be "snapped back" into place.

Trump had temporarily suspended the Caesar Act via 180-day waivers in May and November 2025, but only Congress could repeal the statutory sanctions permanently. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) led the repeal effort, with Wilson introducing standalone repeal legislation (H.R. 3941) in June 2025.

The final repeal was inserted into the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a nearly $1 trillion must-pass defense bill. The Senate passed the NDAA 77-20 on December 17, 2025, and Trump signed it on December 18, 2025. The repeal language included a requirement that the President report every 180 days for four years on Syria's progress on issues including cooperation against ISIS, protection of minorities, and cessation of support for terrorist groups.

The Lobbying Campaign

According to the Times, the Khayyats' lobbying effort in Washington was coordinated substantially by Tarek Naemo, a Florida-based Syrian-American businessman and lifelong friend of Mohamad Al-Khayyat who acknowledged to the Times that he was working on the proposed Trump golf course project. Naemo and his wife "began to court at least a dozen members of Congress, starting with Speaker Mike Johnson," facilitated by a series of campaign contributions.

Key developments the Times documented:

• Inauguration access: Ramez and Moutaz Al-Khayyat attended Trump's January 2025 inauguration events, including a candlelight dinner that "generally required a minimum donation of $250,000 for a pair of tickets." They told the Times they had not paid for the invitation
• Social access to Wilson: Naemo became a social partner of Rep. Wilson, joining him to shoot skeet, meeting him at the Omni Homestead Resort in Virginia, and attending a Kennedy Center performance of "Les Misérables" with Wilson and Trump
• The "foundation stone": Mohamad Al-Khayyat presented Wilson with a framed stone emblazoned "Trump International Golf Club, Syria" to deliver to the White House

Representative Brian Mast's Reversal

The most significant remaining obstacle was Representative Brian Mast (R-FL), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was concerned about protection of ethnic and religious minorities in post-Assad Syria.

According to the Times, the standoff came to a head on November 9, 2025—the night before Trump's historic White House meeting with Syrian President al-Sharaa. At a dinner at the St. Regis Hotel attended by Mast, Wilson, and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), al-Sharaa (who had been a member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq two decades earlier) addressed Mast's concerns directly. A second late-night meeting that included Mohamad Al-Khayyat and Tarek Naemo was hastily arranged. By the end of that evening, Mast had dropped his demand for a snap-back provision. Blumenthal told the Times that "no mention was made of the tie-ins to Trump family deals" at the dinner. Aides to Mast said the Trump family tie-ins were not a factor in his decision.

In remarks on the House floor, Mast stated: "We're giving Syria a chance to chart a post-Assad future."

The Kushner-Khayyat Albania Partnership

Separately from the Syria deals, the Times reported that during the same period that the sanctions lobbying was taking place, the relationship between the Khayyats and Jared Kushner deepened. What had initially been a construction-firm role for the Khayyats on Kushner's multibillion-dollar Albanian seaside resort evolved into a joint venture partnership. Ramez Al-Khayyat told the Times: "We are investing in the holding in order to make sure that there is sufficient capital. So it's a joint venture between the two companies, and actually we are managing it together." Ivanka Trump traveled to Albania in January 2026 to meet with Ramez Al-Khayyat and discuss designs. A spokesman for Kushner declined to comment.

Impact on Syrians at the Proposed Golf Course Site

The Times reported that the proposed Syrian coastal resort is planned for farmland near Latakia in a region where many residents are Alawites—the religious minority that includes the Assad family, and whose members were targeted in massacres by vigilantes after Assad's fall. Local farmer Sinan Younis, 42, told the Times that his extended family of about two dozen people derive their only income from land they farm but do not own. "What about us?" he asked. "How could they take all this, for a reason like that? Why our land, the land that we live from?"

Case Two: Bosnia — A No-Bid Pipeline and Sanctions Relief for a Putin Ally

On May 30, 2026, The Guardian published an investigation by reporter Tom Burgis examining how AAFS Infrastructure and Energy—a firm with no record of comparable projects—was positioned to win contracts worth more than $1 billion to build and operate a gas pipeline across the Balkans. The pipeline, the Southern Interconnection, would connect Bosnia to a liquefied-natural-gas terminal on Croatia's island of Krk, allowing U.S.-shipped gas to replace Russian supplies. Reducing the Balkans' dependence on Russian energy has been a stated U.S. objective across three administrations, and the State Department describes the project as a longstanding priority.

What distinguished AAFS was its personal connections to Trump. The company's director is Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who represented Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in political cases—including defending them against a lawsuit tied to the January 6 Capitol attack—and who, after Trump returned to power, secured a $1.25 million Justice Department settlement for Michael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser. AAFS's vice president is Joe Flynn, Michael Flynn's brother and, like Binnall, a participant in the 2020 effort to overturn Joe Biden's election victory. The Guardian described the two men's qualifications for a Balkans infrastructure venture as "not immediately apparent."

The No-Bid Award

The company, registered in Sarajevo in November 2025 and wholly owned by a U.S. entity of the same name, initially discussed a $300 million airport renovation with Bosnian officials before being steered toward the far larger pipeline. In March 2026, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina—the Bosniak-Croat entity that is one of the country's two halves—passed legislation designating AAFS as the pipeline's developer, removing the state-owned company BH-Gas that had previously held the role. There was no competitive tender, the customary mechanism for ensuring a contract goes to a capable bidder at a fair price. On April 15, 2026, the Federation's upper house gave final approval to the project, estimated at about $1.5 billion; AAFS has said it intends to invest roughly $1.8 billion across the pipeline, gas-fired power plants, and airport concessions.

Transparency International warned that awarding such a strategic project without a tender, "in a country with one of the highest levels of corruption in Europe," could have "catastrophic consequences." The EU's ambassador to Bosnia, Luigi Soreca, privately warned Bosnian leaders in April that the project-specific legislation could jeopardize the country's EU accession path and more than €1 billion in EU funding. A confidential AAFS proposal seen by the Guardian put the pipeline at €300 million, with another €900 million for three power plants, financed by equity and debt rather than the Bosnian state; the documents did not specify what returns the company's principals expected.

The various dollar and euro figures reported for the venture describe different scopes rather than conflicting estimates. The Guardian's "worth more than $1 billion" and its €300 million (pipeline) plus €900 million (three power plants) breakdown—roughly €1.2 billion combined—cover the pipeline-and-power-plant package. The "roughly $1.5 billion" project estimate and the "$1.8 billion" AAFS investment figure additionally fold in the airport concessions and reflect the full concession package rather than the pipeline alone. Read against the scope each source is measuring, the numbers are consistent.

Sanctions Relief for Dodik

The project's completion depends on Milorad Dodik, the ultranationalist leader of Bosnia's Serbs, whose entity (Republika Srpska) could veto the pipeline and across whose territory the existing Russian-gas pipeline runs. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Treasury had sanctioned Dodik, accusing him of abusing public office "to accumulate personal wealth through graft, bribery, and other forms of corruption." Dodik called the sanctions "lies."

After Trump returned to office, Dodik launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to have the sanctions lifted; one of the lobbyists was Michael Flynn, who earned $100,000 for a month's work. In October 2025, the Trump administration cancelled the sanctions without public explanation. On April 7, 2026, Donald Trump Jr., the custodian of the family business empire, traveled to Banja Luka, the main city of the Serb entity, for an event in his honor, where he praised the benefits of buying American gas—"That's a no-brainer"—without mentioning AAFS or the pipeline directly. On April 21, shortly after the visit, Dodik indicated he would not obstruct the project.

Context and Caveats

The Southern Interconnection has a genuine energy-security rationale: Bosnia depends entirely on Russian gas, and the EU has set deadlines to phase out Russian imports. The financing is private rather than taxpayer-funded, and the U.S. Department of Energy has framed the effort as part of a broader "Trump Peace Pipelines Framework" to expand American LNG exports. Binnall defended the venture, telling the Guardian: "We are the right team for this. No other group combines on-the-ground presence in Bosnia with strong support in America." AAFS and the Trumps deny any impropriety, and once the legislation designated AAFS, no competitive process was legally required. As of mid-2026, Croatia and Bosnia had signed a framework agreement, but financing, permits, route details, and the final AAFS contract remained to be completed.

The Broader Pattern

The Times framed the Syria episode as exemplifying a broader dynamic in Trump's second term: "a warped system of executive patronage in which investors donate millions to the president's pet projects, or invest alongside the Trump family, in hopes of achieving their policy goals, even if no explicit ask is ever made." The Bosnia case extends the pattern from the family itself to people in the president's orbit—his lawyer and an adviser's brother—winning a foreign contract as the administration simultaneously delivered a related policy shift. The Trump family has publicly stated it intends to continue doing business deals around the world during the second term, a departure from prior presidents of both parties who have sought to avoid even the perception of conflicts of interest.

Despite lifting the Syria sanctions, the Times noted that Mast and other members of Congress remain concerned that Syria has not lived up to expectations—with continued sectarian violence against minorities—but "the leverage the United States had—the power to snap back the sanctions—is now gone." In the Balkans, analysts warn of a parallel risk: that entrusting a critical energy artery to a venture with no demonstrated ability to build it, outside normal procurement, could leave Bosnia dependent on the goodwill of the same actors it is meant to free it from.