(FILES) People protest during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the Trump Building in New York on March 19, 2025. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
Paris: His business is booming in India, but his golf courses have been vandalized in Ireland and Scotland, and he has had business setbacks in Indonesia: two months after his frenetic return to the White House, Donald Trump's brand has had mixed success worldwide.
No stranger to blending business and politics, the US president got a taste of the hazards recently when the elegant clubhouse of the Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland was splashed in blood-red paint, an immaculate green spray-painted with the words: "GAZA IS NOT 4 SALE."
A pro-Palestinian group claimed the "act of resistance," saying it was in answer to Trump's proposal to take over the Gaza Strip, expel its inhabitants and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
Another Trump golf course in Ireland was targeted last week, when activists planted Palestinian flags on the greens.
Luxury symbol
A world away, on the tropical island of Bali, weeds have overrun the Nirwana golf resort, which the Trump Organization and a local partner signed a deal in 2015 to develop a six-star destination.
The resort closed two years later, costing local workers their jobs. The Trump family empire has since then joined up with local partners in a large real estate project near Indonesia's capital Jakarta.
But that venture, a vast luxury development called Lido City, has also run into problems. In February, the Indonesian government halted the billion-dollar project over environmental violations.
Still, a Trump-branded golf course should soon open on the site in collaboration with a local group.
"Trump as a brand in Indonesia is not too famous, different than Trump as a president," Yoes Kenawas, a political scientist at Indonesia's Atma Jaya University, told AFP.
India is another story: there, flamboyant Trump towers already scrape the smoggy skies of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Pune, making the country the most important overseas market for the Trump organization.
Like in the Philippines, Turkey, South Korea and Uruguay, the real-estate tycoon's family does not invest directly in the properties, which are built and managed by local developers.
Instead, the Trump family collects royalties, sometimes running into the millions of dollars, for licensing its brand -- which, to a newly wealthy Indian jet set, is widely seen as a byword for luxury and success.
"I think the brand has become much larger than life, particularly after he's come back for a second term," Anuj Puri, chairman of real-estate consultancy Anarock, told AFP.
"He's more in the newspapers than even any Indian politician."
Another Trump-branded office and retail project was announced this week in Pune, and there are plans for five new Trump towers around the country in the coming years.
