At a Dubai Conference, Trumps Conflicts Take Center Stage

Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday.A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family.

And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr.Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the firm, would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.Virtually every detail of Mr.

Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr.Trump’s second-eldest son contained a conflict of interest.MGX’s use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government.

The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance — a company that has been under U.S.government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws.And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to President Trump, who is listed as World Liberty’s chief crypto advocate.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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