Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Sunday, July 27th.

Today on Forbes, how Trump used the presidency to expand his global empire, quote, we'd call that corruption.

On January 30th, 10 days after Donald Trump's inauguration, a firm with ties to the president, created two companies

in Delaware, D.T. Marks Abu Dhabi LLC and D.T. Marks Abu Dhabi member corp. The naming

conventions of the entities, starting with Trump's initials, followed by the word marks,

then a location of a future project, match how the president has named more than 30

other licensing entities in his portfolio. The Trump Organization has not yet announced a deal

in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, but it's likely just a matter of time. Since last fall,

Trump has been on a deal-making spree, with his business revealing eight

new projects in just 10 months.

His foreign licensing income shot up from an estimated $6 million in 2023 to nearly $50

million last year.

More business is headed Trump's way.

Corporate filings point to at least three other unannounced deals in Abu Dhabi, Serbia,

and Hungary. All of this represents an about-face for the president, who hung on to ownership of

his assets during his first term, but stuck them in a trust and promised to launch no new ventures

overseas. In the six years after his initial election, he added only one deal,

agreeing to brand a golf development in Oman. But today, Trump profits from politics with little

reservation, both domestically, recently signing crypto legislation that probably made him

tens of millions of dollars, and abroad, expanding his licensing empire

at dizzying speed. The conflicts of interest are now more brazen and more overlooked than ever before.

Trump's international travel, for instance, seems to be as much about his personal business

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