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Drop Site Profile picture
@DropSiteNews
Nov 23, 2025 • 9 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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🇸🇩 THREAD: Why Trump Won’t Confront the UAE Over Its Support for Sudan’s Genocidal RSF

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have spent the past month carrying out a genocidal massacre in al-Fasher, where satellite analysis suggests as many as 200,000 people are now unaccounted for. The RSF’s mass executions, village burnings, ethnic cleansing, and systematic starvation rank among some of the worst atrocities of the 21st century.

Yet the United States, under Donald Trump, has shown no sign of pressuring RSF’s chief external backer: the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A recent report by Forbes details why - The UAE is Trump’s biggest foreign revenue source.

Trump’s current financial entanglements with the Emirates create powerful personal incentives for the President to look away as a genocide unfolds rather than pressure Abu Dhabi.

📸🎥 “A lot of cash. Unlimited cash.” — President Trump could hardly help himself from saying out loud as he stood next to UAE Vice-President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in Egypt on October 13. A New York Times investigation, citing U.S. intelligence, identified Sheikh Mansour as the senior Emirati official overseeing the UAE’s outreach to Sudan’s RSF — including communications with RSF commander Hemedti and the networks moving money, supplies, and political support to the militia. The Times also published a photo of Sheikh Mansour meeting with Hemedti, as he stands accused of mass killings, mass rapes, and ethnic cleansing across Darfur and beyond. 🧵⬇️
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⭕️ *The UAE is Trump’s biggest foreign revenue source*

Since 2022, Trump businesses have entered at least nine UAE-linked deals. Five are Trump Organization licensing agreements that pay ongoing fees for the use of the Trump name on golf courses, hotels, and residential projects. Licensing contracts require no construction or ownership from Trump. They are pure cash streams. New filings estimate these UAE-connected deals will bring in about 500 million dollars in 2025 alone, with at least 50 million in recurring annual income. No other foreign country provides comparable revenue to the Trump family.Image
⭕️ Key Emirati businessmen directly fund Trump enterprises

Chief example is Hussain Sajwani - the Emirati billionaire founder of Damac Properties who built Trump International Golf Club Dubai and Trump-branded communities in Damac Hills. His companies reportedly pay Trump about 6 million dollars per year in licensing and management fees. He celebrated Trump’s 2016 victory at Trump’s DC hotel and met Trump at Mar-a-Lago again in January, promising 20 billion dollars in US investment. Damac remains positioned to benefit from new Trump-branded developments across the Gulf.Image
⭕️ Government-adjacent Emirati firms are now inside Trump’s crypto world

World Liberty Financial, a crypto stablecoin company co-founded by Trump and real estate friend Steve Witkoff shortly before the 2024 election, surged after Trump won. A UAE-based high frequency trading outfit, DWF Labs, bought 25 million dollars worth of tokens. Another 100 million came from the Aqua1 Foundation, a mysterious UAE-based investment entity whose public materials highlight alignment with Abu Dhabi’s government-led development strategy.

Forbes reports those two purchases alone delivered 94 million dollars into Trump family accounts and 16 million into the Witkoff family.Image
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⭕️ “American Bitcoin,” Eric Trump’s new company, has clear financial incentives tied to the UAE

Eric and Don Jr., along with Trump Organization executives, launched American Data Centers in early 2025, then shifted the business into cryptocurrency mining and renamed it American Bitcoin. Eric Trump now holds an estimated 400-plus million dollar stake. Its CEO, Mike Ho, told Arabian Gulf Business Insight that the company had discussed potential expansion into the UAE, including talks with Taqa and ADQ — both state-controlled Abu Dhabi entities that oversee energy generation, infrastructure, and major investment portfolios.

Eric Trump spoke at the Dubai conference “TOKEN2049” in May 2025.Image
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⭕️ Abu Dhabi’s ruling elite are now directly linked to Trump financial products

At a Dubai crypto conference earlier this year, Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff announced that MGX — a financial firm chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the powerful national security adviser and brother of the UAE ruler — plans to use World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin to facilitate a 2 billion dollar investment in Binance. That multibillion-dollar deposit allows the Trump-affiliated company to earn tens of millions annually in interest, and exponentially increased its valuation.

(Days later, Trump granted a presidential pardon to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.)Image
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⭕️ Trump’s future wealth expansion now runs through the Emirates

Corporate filings point to a forthcoming Trump real-estate development in Abu Dhabi, likely in the Al Raha Beach district — a project that would require long-term cooperation with state-aligned developers, land authorities, and regulators. Meanwhile, Dubai-based developers have already announced an 80-story Trump Tower slated to begin construction in late 2025, with projected completion around 2031. That project is being led by longtime Trump licensing partner Ziad El Chaar, who has spent years publicly advocating tokenized real estate — converting buildings into fractional digital ownership assets. Eric Trump has confirmed he is actively working to tokenize at least one Trump property, meaning Dubai or Abu Dhabi could become the proving grounds for a brand-new Trump revenue model. These ventures require sustained political and financial goodwill from the UAE.

Photos: Rendering of the Trump Tower in Dubai, published by Dar Global.Image
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⭕️ Diplomat-business hybrids reinforce the alignment

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s business partner in World Liberty Financial, now functions as a presidential envoy, blurring the line between diplomacy and deal-making. Jared Kushner’s 5.4 billion dollar private-equity fund is heavily financed by Gulf sovereign wealth, including the UAE, giving Abu Dhabi access not just to Trump but to the broader policymaking orbit surrounding him.

Both men appeared on 60 Minutes defending these arrangements, arguing that what critics call conflicts of interest are really “experience and trusted relationships.” That framing also defines Trump’s foreign policy posture — especially toward the UAE that invests directly in Trump-linked enterprises.
⭕️ TLDR: The UAE is not just another foreign partner for the Trump White House. It is the political, financial, real-estate, and crypto ecosystem powering the Trump family’s current and future wealth. Pressuring Abu Dhabi over its arming, financing, and enabling of a genocidal paramilitary force in Sudan would risk billions, jeopardize ongoing deals, collapse upcoming ventures, and damage Trump’s most important business relationships.

Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, says that is precisely what is needed. Trump should call UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and threaten sanctions unless the UAE stops arming the RSF.

💥After spending 18 months briefing the UN and both Biden and Trump officials, warning of what has unfolded in Al-Fasher, he describes the past month as “the most exquisitely precisely warned mass atrocity in human history,” and one that was “entirely predictable.”

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More from @DropSiteNews

Drop Site Profile picture
May 4
🚨 Breaking: UAE’s Fujairah Government reports a large fire at the Fujairah Petroleum Industries Zone caused by a drone strike “originating from Iran.” Civil Defense is responding.
Iranian authorities and state-affiliated news outlets have previously said that:

▪️UAE Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jets were responsible for attacking a refinery on Lavan Island shortly after a ceasefire was brokered in early April 2026.

▪️The UAE played an "active role" in a broader US-Israeli military campaign since its inception.

▪️UAE has been allowing its territory to serve as a launch point for US strikes throughout the war, particularly referencing a mid-March attack on Kharg Island.Image
⭕️ A cargo vessel has reported an engine room fire 36 nautical miles north of Dubai on Monday, according to a UKMTO advisory. The cause is unknown and authorities are investigating. All crew are safe and accounted for.
Read 4 tweets
Drop Site Profile picture
Apr 6
🚨 Iran Rejects Temporary Ceasefire, Says It Has Already Laid Out Terms for Agreement

Senior Iranian official tells Drop Site that Trump is pushing for a deal but the new proposal is “detached from the realities on the ground.”

By @JeremyScahill, @MazMHussain, and Jawa Ahmad

dropsitenews.com/p/iran-trump-w…
1/ Reuters reported Monday on a Pakistani-led framework to end the fighting that had been shared with both Washington and Tehran.

The framework reportedly calls for a temporary ceasefire in exchange for a resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, with 15-20 days given to reach a final settlement that would address:
🔹 Iran’s nuclear program
🔹sanctions relief, and
🔹a regional framework for administering the strait.
2/ A senior Iranian official spoke with Drop Site and confirmed that Tehran had received the proposal but reiterated that Iran rejects any agreement based on a temporary ceasefire.

“It is our assessment that the Trump administration, owing to legal constraints within the United States concerning the prosecution of the war as well as the need to maintain control over financial markets, requires a short-term pause in the conflict,” said the official.

He added that Iran would only accept an agreement that ended the war against Iran conclusively, and which could then be used as a basis for broader talks.
Read 13 tweets
Drop Site Profile picture
Apr 5
President Donald Trump admitted on Sunday that the United States attempted to send weapons to anti-government protesters in Iran earlier this year, speaking in a phone interview with Fox News’ Trey Yingst.

Trump claimed “a lot of guns” were sent “through the Kurds,” but said he believes the weapons never reached demonstrators, suggesting Kurdish intermediaries “kept them.”

He also asserted that “45,000” protesters were “slaughtered” during unrest in January 2026.

That figure is unsubstantiated and widely disputed. Iranian authorities have reported roughly 3,100 deaths, including about 300 police and security personnel.
Israel’s Channel 14 reported “foreign actors” were milking Iranian security personnel back in January, without naming the foreign nation. Image
Some Kurdish groups are rejecting the President‘s claims:
Read 4 tweets
Drop Site Profile picture
Mar 27
💢 BREAKING: Coordinated strikes have hit all three of Iran’s largest steel plants simultaneously – Mobarakeh, Esfahan, and Khuzestan – the backbone of the country’s non-oil economy.

Together they produce roughly 70% of Iran’s steel output. Iron and steel is Iran’s second-largest export category at $6.48 billion, its primary hard-currency lifeline outside of oil.

Mobarakeh makes the flat steel used in cars and pipelines. Esfahan produces structural beams and railway rails. Khuzestan supplies the raw slabs that feed factories nationwide.

Steel became Iran’s top non-oil export precisely as a sanction hedge as it is cheap to produce using local ore and natural gas, and a critical source of foreign currency when oil revenues were blocked.

Hitting all three at once targets critical industrial capacity and the economic architecture Iran spent decades building to survive Western pressure.
Confirmation from Iran’s state TV:
Fars News shares details on U.S.-Israeli strikes that hit two of Iran’s largest steel facilities around 9:30 a.m. ET

🔶Damage at Mobarakeh Steel (Isfahan):
▪️ Electricity substation hit
▪️ Alloy steel production line damaged
▪️Power Unit
▪️ This is Iran's largest steelmaker, producing over 7 million tons annually. By targeting the electrical substation and power plant, the strike effectively "paralyzed" the facility's high-energy melting operations even if the main buildings remain standing.
▪️ Deputy governor Akbar Salehi said one person was killed and two injured, adding the plant was operating at the time with workers present, per IRNA

🔶Damage at Khuzestan Steel (Ahvaz)
▪️ The strikes hit two storage silos and several warehouses.
▪️Crucially, the blast furnaces (Units 1 and 2) were reported to be undamaged, as they were offline at the time of the attack.
▪️The damage to storage and logistical sheds disrupts the supply chain (billet and slab exports) but leaves the core heavy machinery intact for now.
▪️ Deputy governor Valiollah Hayati said U.S. and Israeli warplanes carried out the attacks, according to Fars

Source: Argus Media, Fars
Read 14 tweets
Drop Site Profile picture
Mar 26
🇨🇴 BREAKING: Colombia to exit ISDS international investment arbitration regime

President Gustavo Petro announced that Colombia will withdraw from the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, following a global call from over 220 economists and legal scholars including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and renowned economist Thomas Piketty.

ISDS allows foreign corporations to sue governments in international tribunals over policies that affect their profits, often bypassing domestic courts and exposing states to multi-billion-dollar claims.

“Several countries have already announced or have exited this type of arbitration, including the United States. I don’t see why Colombia shouldn’t do the same,” Petro said.

Colombia has about $14 billion at risk in such cases, Petro said, noting that states often lose these disputes.

“ISDS is bad not just because it puts transnational corporations above the environment and human rights, but because it creates a fast-track legal system that gives them unfair privileges over local businesses and because it grants those corporations ‘license to kill’ government regulations with threats of billion dollar arbitration,” Andrés Arauz of the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote in a press release.

The move aligns Colombia with countries like South Africa, India, and Indonesia that have also terminated ISDS agreements, and comes ahead of the first-ever Global Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels set to be held in Colombia in April.Image
📌 Letter from 220 Economists and Legal Scholars to Colombian President Gustavo Petro Calling for Action on ISDS

“Dear President Gustavo Petro Urrego,

We write to you as economists and legal scholars deeply concerned that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) poses a serious obstacle to building prosperous, equitable, and sustainable societies. As Colombia prepares to co-host the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta from April 24-29, where discussions on ISDS will take the center stage, we urge you to seize the moment by giving effect to your decision to begin removing Colombia from ISDS,[1] and launching a broader alliance of countries committed to unwinding ISDS.

Written into thousands of international trade and investment treaties, including 18 agreements signed by Colombia, ISDS allows foreign corporations to bypass domestic courts and bring legal claims against host governments before special international arbitration tribunals that routinely award vast sums for alleged harms to their investments. ISDS is asymmetrical by design, granting foreign investors expansive protections that are unavailable to domestic businesses or citizens of the host country.

While proponents argue ISDS can protect investors from unfair treatment, in practice it has become a tool through which corporations can challenge non-discriminatory public policies on the basis that they affect corporate profitability, rather than because they discriminate against investors. This dynamic raises significant concerns about states’ ability to regulate freely in the public interest, including in the context of climate action.

The International Court of Justice has affirmed that states have an obligation, based on multiple sources of international law, to address climate change.[2] However, when governments take reasonable steps to address climate change – such as implementing fossil fuel phase-out measures – they have repeatedly been targeted by ISDS claims. For instance, your conference co-host, the Netherlands, is facing cases from ExxonMobil and Shell for closing the Groningen gas field.[3] For a country like Colombia, the risk is concrete. Under your leadership, the government has halted new fossil fuel exploration contracts and advanced an ambitious energy transition agenda[4]. Yet, Colombia has 129 oil and gas projects that are covered by ISDS provisions, exposing the country to claims in the billions of dollars.[5]As a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment warned, ISDS operates as a system for “paying polluters,” effectively requiring states to compensate corporations for complying with climate policies.[6]

ISDS has long been justified as necessary to attract foreign investment and thereby promote economic development. However, empirical evidence does not support any meaningful connection between ISDS commitments and increased investment inflows.[7] Brazil, South America’s largest recipient of foreign investment, has eschewed ISDS.
Colombia has a rare opportunity to scale back ISDS and ensure that it does not stand in the way of its transition away from fossil fuels – and it would not be charting this course alone. Across the world, governments are reassessing investment treaties and stepping back from ISDS. Countries such as South Africa, India, Indonesia, Ecuador, and Bolivia have terminated ISDS-enforced agreements after determining that they were not in their national interests. Even Global North countries that initially pushed ISDS in countless trade and investment agreements have been moving away from the regime. In North America, for example, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement eliminated ISDS between the United States and Canada and significantly narrowed it in relation to Mexico. Within the European Union, member states have terminated their mutual investment treaties, with nearly half also withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty, the largest multilateral agreement with ISDS, over concerns about its protection of fossil fuel investments.

Because ISDS is mostly treaty-based, durable reform cannot be purely unilateral. It requires coordination among states that recognize the structural contradiction between expansive investor protections and the rapid decarbonization demanded by science and international law. The Santa Marta conference provides a unique platform to initiate such coordination. By coupling Colombia’s domestic review of ISDS with an invitation to other governments to explore collective disengagement, you could help catalyze a coalition of countries working towards a world free of ISDS.

We urge you to use Colombia’s historic hosting of the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels as an opportunity to initiate steps toward withdrawing from ISDS and to galvanize coordinated international action, leaving a lasting legacy for others to follow.”
Read 4 tweets
Drop Site Profile picture
Mar 20
🚨NEW:

1/
 An Israeli indictment alleges an Iron Dome reservist secretly worked for Iranian intelligence, passing along locations of air bases, missile defense systems, and potential recruits for months, in exchange for payment.

A new Drop Site News investigation reveals this is not an isolated case, but part of a growing covert campaign inside Israel. ⬇️🧵Image
2/
 In a major report, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain detail Iran’s expanding effort to recruit Israelis and carry out influence and espionage operations from within.

The investigation is based on internal Iranian intelligence materials and direct interviews with officials.

——
📸 An Iranian man walks under a display featuring a logo of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence in the historic city of Isfahan, Iran, on February 20, 2025. Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images.Image
3/
 According to the indictment, the suspect knowingly maintained contact with Iranian handlers and carried out tasks under their direction.

Prosecutors say he transferred sensitive security information and helped identify additional individuals for recruitment, pointing to network-building inside Israel.Image
Read 9 tweets

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