Syrian Billionaires Needed a Favor in Washington. They Invoked the Trump Name. [View all]

Source: New York Times


Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, two of three Syrian-born brothers, at their company's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Laura Boushnak for The New York Times

Syrian Billionaires Needed a Favor in Washington. They Invoked the Trump Name.

The attempt by the Khayyats to influence foreign policy while discussions are underway about potential Trump family deals is an increasingly common feature of the president's second term.

By Eric Lipton
Reporting from Syria, Qatar and Washington

April 19, 2026
Updated 10:20 a.m. ET

Last summer, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, sat in his Capitol Hill office in rapt attention as Middle Eastern investors laid out their plans in a video call to develop coastal property in Syria.

A cruise ship port. A polo club. A Bugatti car showroom. A world-class golf course. All in a country that had just recently been torn apart by civil war.

Nor was this everything. While Mohamad Al-Khayyat, a powerful Syrian-born businessman, was pitching the proposal, his brothers were winning more than $12 billion in government-sponsored contracts to rebuild a wide swath of the devastated Syrian economy.

There was a hitch, though. The Khayyats needed a big favor from Congress with the support of President Trump: the permanent lifting of crippling sanctions imposed on Syria before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/us/politics/trump-syria-khayyat.html

---

https://www.nytimes.com/by/eric-lipton

--------

Reposted by No More Mr. Nice Popehat
https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social

NYT INVESTIGATION: As the Trump administration & Congress last year moved to repeal sanctions on Syria, the Qatar-based family that most stood to benefit was privately negotiating a real-estate partnership with Jared Kushner and proposing a Trump golf course in Syria www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/u...

— Eric Lipton NYT (@ericlipton.nytimes.com) 2026-04-19T12:25:58.146Z

******
Eric Lipton NYT
‪@ericlipton.nytimes.com‬

NYT INVESTIGATION: As the Trump administration & Congress last year moved to repeal sanctions on Syria, the Qatar-based family that most stood to benefit was privately negotiating a real-estate partnership with Jared Kushner and proposing a Trump golf course in Syria
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/us/politics/trump-syria-khayyat.html

Syrian Billionaires Needed a Favor in Washington. They Invoked the Trump Name.
www.nytimes.com
8:26 AM · Apr 19, 2026
******