The White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced on Thursday at a raucous briefing that President Donald Trump will host the 2020 G-7 summit of world leaders at the Trump National Doral Miami.
During a White House briefing, Mulvaney said, “It was almost like they built this facility”.
The announcement to choose the president’s own club as the site of an international summit comes as Trump is in the midst of twin crises that are consuming his presidency – a hasty and confused American retreat in Syria, and a growing impeachment inquiry in Congress.
“Doral was far and away from the best physical facility for this meeting,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in announcing the decision.
He further said that the administration examined 10 sites before choosing this one.
The G-7 summit rotates among sites chosen by the seven-member countries and the European Union. The last time it was held in the US, in 2012, President Barack Obama held it at the government-owned retreat at Camp David in Maryland.
In 2004, President George W. Bush held it at the exclusive, isolated resort of Sea Island, Georgia.
Trump’s properties have hosted US government officials before, and the company said that it does not seek to make a profit off that business. But even so, Trump’s properties can be expensive, at his Mar-a-Lago Club, for instance, the government paid Trump’s company $546 per night for each staffer staying in the club’s guest rooms, and another $1,000 for a single night of drinking by White House aides at one of Mar-a-Lago’s bars.
The selection of Doral as the site of the G-7 seems to signal the collapse of promises made by Donald and Eric Trump at the start of the Trump presidency when they pledged to create separation between Trump’s private business and his new public office.
Earlier on Wednesday, President Trump warned his Turkey counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an extraordinary letter sent the day Turkey launched its incursion into northeastern Syria.
Earlier this week, Trump had announced that he will authorise sanctions against Turkish officials, raise steel tariffs and end negotiations on a USD 100 billion trade deal.
Last week, Turkey launched a cross-border assault on Kurdish fighters after the US decided to withdraw troops from Syria, a move that was criticised by the Republicans, with some terming it a “betrayal” of the Kurds.