Trump’s property company in talks to buy back his Washington DC hotel
Share:
Trump International hotel, currently a Waldorf Astoria, was, opponents say, a venue for influence peddling. Donald Trump’s property company is in negotiations to re-purchase his Washington hotel, which opponents say was a venue for illicit influence peddling during his first presidency.
The Trump International hotel, housed in the city’s old post office building a short walk from the White House, was sold in 2022 and is now the Waldorf Astoria. The president-elect’s son, Eric Trump, who is an executive vice-president at his father’s company, met a senior executive from BDT & MSD Partners, the merchant bank that controls its long term lease, at the family’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida this week to discuss buying it back, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Talks are said to be at an early stage. Trump opened the hotel in 2016, the same year he was first elected president, four years after winning a fierce bidding competition to buy the lease against other hotel operators, including Marriott and Hilton. He spent about $200m turning it into an “ultra-luxury” hotel, according to Forbes.
But while it became a magnet during his presidency for Trump admirers, lobbyists and Republican Congress members, it generated less annual revenue than anticipated, the website reported, dropping to $20m – well short of the $100m-plus expected – after the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
