Dominican deal tests Trump pledge of no new foreign projects

WASHINGTON -- The Trump Organization is returning to a long-dormant licensing deal involving a beachfront luxury resort in the Dominican Republic, testing the limits of Donald Trump's pledge to halt new international Trump-branded projects during his presidency.

The branding deal -- signed in 2007 between Trump and the wealthy Hazoury family with stakes in airports, education and media -- stalled out amid the 2008 financial crisis and a later dispute over Trump's fees. The resort has not used the Trump name in publicity materials or discussed working with Trump in years.

But the Trump family's re-engagement surfaced unexpectedly last week, when Eric Trump, an executive vice president, was photographed touring the property with brothers Ricardo and Fernando Hazoury. He had accused them of "textbook fraud" in a 2012 lawsuit over allegedly hidden property sales.

In a news release, the Hazoury brothers called their relationship with Eric Trump "incredibly strong."

The Trump Organization's general counsel, Alan Garten, described efforts to restart the development-branding deal as very preliminary. The renewed pursuit of the project shows the company believes it has latitude to carry on significant new activity overseas, despite the president's pledge to avoid new foreign-development deals.

"No new foreign deals will be made whatsoever during the duration of President Trump's presidency," Trump lawyer Sheri Dillon of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLC said last month at a news conference. Under the self-imposed rules she described, new domestic deals will be allowed, but they will go through what she called a vigorous vetting process.

Garten said the deal in the Dominican Republic was never dead, even though nothing new has been built or announced in a decade.