Trump registered eight companies in Saudi Arabia during campaign: report

President-elect Donald Trump registered eight companies during his presidential campaign that appear to be tied to hotel interests in Saudi Arabia, according to a report in The Washington Post.

Trump registered the companies in August 2015, shortly after launching his presidential bid, according to The Post.

The companies were registered under names such as THC Jeddah Hotel and DT Jeddah Technical Services, according to financial disclosure filings.

The names of the companies registered appeared similar in pattern to how Trump named other companies connected to hotel deals registered in foreign cities, according to the Post. Trump names companies after cities in the state in which he is dealing with. Jiddah, also spelled Jeddah, is the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia, located on the Red Sea coast about 60 miles west of Mecca.

The Post reported that by the time of Trump’s May financial filing, four of those companies in which Trump was the president or director were still active. Trump has in the past said he wants to protect the oil-rich Arab kingdom.

During a rally on August 21, the day Trump created four of those companies, he said he gets along well with Saudi Arabia.

“They buy apartments from me,” Trump said during the Alabama rally. “They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

In January of this year, Trump said on Fox News he “would want to protect Saudi Arabia.
“I would want to protect Saudi Arabia,” he said during the interview. “But Saudi Arabia is going to have to help us economically. They were making, before the oil went down … they were making $1 billion a day.”
During his presidential campaign, the president-elect often called out his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, for accepting money from Saudi Arabia for the Clinton Foundation.

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