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United States President Donald Trump\u2019s son Eric is investing in an Israeli drone manufacturer, prompting renewed conflict-of-interest concerns as the Trump family expands its business holdings during its patriarch\u2019s second term as president.<\/p>\n
Eric Trump is investing in a $1.5bn merger between Israeli drone maker Xtend and Florida-based JFB Construction Holdings, a small construction company, in a deal aimed at taking Xtend public this year, JFB said in a news release on Tuesday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Xtend is an Israeli company whose products have been used by Israel\u2019s military in Gaza, including using its drones to map underground tunnels, The Wall Street Journal has reported.<\/p>\n Drone maker Unusual Machines, which tapped Eric\u2019s brother Donald Trump Jr in November 2024 as an adviser, is also investing in the merger, JFB said. JFB builds commercial and residential properties, including multifamily communities and shopping centres.<\/p>\n Xtend touts its drones as \u201clow cost per kill\u201d, which has appealed to the US Department of Defense. In November, the firm said it had solidified a multimillion-dollar contract with the Pentagon but did not disclose the contract\u2019s value.<\/p>\n This month, Xtend was among 25 companies selected to participate in the Defense Department\u2019s Drone Dominance Program, an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low-cost, attack drones at scale.<\/p>\n Xtend also secured contracts with the Pentagon before Trump\u2019s second term, including an $8.8m deal in December 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cI am incredibly proud to invest in companies I believe in. Drones are clearly the wave of the future. Xtend has unbelievable potential,\u201d Eric Trump said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cBy pairing XTEND\u2019s operating system and advanced AI capabilities with JFB\u2019s execution, infrastructure and buildout expertise, we see a clear opportunity to accelerate US manufacturing, scale production responsibly, and support a next-generation defense technology platform built in America and ready for the public markets,\u201d Joseph F Basile III, chief executive officer of JFB, said in the news release.<\/p>\n JFB did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment about the connection between its existing portfolio, which includes primarily commercial properties like a Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Florida and an escape room in Indiana, and a defence contractor.<\/p>\n \u201cBy combining our platform with JFB, we are acquiring the resources we need to scale our manufacturing capabilities in the US and gaining access to the US public markets,\u201d Xtend CEO Aviv Shapira said in the news release.<\/p>\n Xtend did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n The deal is the latest in a series of conflict-of-interest concerns surrounding the Trump family\u2019s personal investments and whether its members are using the Trump presidency to advance their own financial interests, according to ethics experts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first thing that comes to mind is another example of the president\u2019s family appearing to profit from the presidency,\u201d said Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past, a president would avoid even the appearance that the family was benefitting from the office, and if that couldn\u2019t be completely avoided, the president would make statements to reassure the public that there was no special treatment provided to the family that could lead to this benefit. Now, you don\u2019t see anything like that.\u201d Payne told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n JFB Construction also appointed Stefan Passantino, a former White House attorney, to its board of directors amid the merger.<\/p>\n The investment comes even as the Trump family company has filed to trademark the use of the president\u2019s name on airports but said it doesn\u2019t plan on charging a fee at least for a proposed renaming of one near his Florida home, The Associated Press news agency reported.<\/p>\n Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer who uncovered the filings over the weekend, said the applications were the first of their kind he\u2019s ever seen.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile presidents and public officials have had landmarks named in their honor, a sitting president\u2019s private company has never in the history of the United States sought trademark rights in advance of such naming,\u201d Gerben wrote on his blog. \u201cI should be very clear: these are trademark filings that are completely unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n During former President Joe Biden\u2019s term, Republicans rallied against his son Hunter Biden for using his connections with the White House to advance his personal business interests.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he [Hunter Biden] got a board position with a company overseas, there were concerns that he was using his name to secure a high-profile job. There were no ties to government contracts, but even the appearance that he had a position based on his name was controversial,\u201d Payne said.<\/p>\n The Oversight Committee in the US House of Representatives alleged that the Bidens \u201cparticipated or benefited from the business schemes\u201d in a committee hearing in March 2024 about Hunter Biden\u2019s business dealings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have learned that Joe Biden has taken action after action to further his family\u2019s plans to get rich,\u201d James Comer, the committee\u2019s then-chairman, said at the time.<\/p>\n Comer did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment about whether he shared the same concerns about the Trump family.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about something far more extreme: a child receiving benefits from government contracts, at least indirectly through a company he owns, including lucrative contracts with the Defense Department. That\u2019s something we haven\u2019t seen since Halliburton and Vice President [Dick] Cheney,\u201d Payne said.<\/p>\n The White House and Trump Organization representatives did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n United States President Donald Trump\u2019s son Eric is investing in an Israeli drone manufacturer, prompting renewed conflict-of-interest concerns as the Trump family expands its business holdings during its patriarch\u2019s second term as president. Eric Trump is investing in a $1.5bn merger between Israeli drone maker Xtend and Florida-based JFB Construction Holdings, a small construction company, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Renewed conflict-of-interest concerns<\/h2>\n
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