Dubai development takes down Trump’s name
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Version 0 of 1. DUBAI — Since the project was announced 18 months ago, giant billboards featuring Donald Trump’s name proclaimed the luxury development “the Beverly Hills of Dubai.” Akoya by Damac, a $6 billion development launched in a partnership between Damac Properties and the Trump Organization, promised a Trump-branded golf course at the heart of a residential enclave with hudreds of apartments and villas ranging in price from $1 million to $10 million. But on Thursday, the signs bearing Trump’s name had disappeared, with giant blank gaps in a line of billboards left in their place. Security guards stood watch nearby and stopped anyone who tried to take pictures. The senior vice president for corporate communications at Dubai-based Damac Properties, Niall McLoughlin, declined to comment on the billboard issue Thursday after the company initially vowed to honor its ties with the Trump Organization. But the Republican presidential candidate’s recent call for a “total and complete” ban on entry by Muslims into the United States has created unease in some of the places in the Middle East where he does business. [Attacks on Trump make these voters like him more] This week, Dubai-based Landmark Group announced that it would remove Trump home decor products from its 180 Lifestyle stores in the region because it “values and respects the sentiments of its customers,” the Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN, Emirati billionaire Khalaf al-Habtoor, who once held the contract to build a later-canceled Trump International hotel and tower in Dubai, branded his former business associate “the biggest enemy of Islam.” In a column in the National newspaper, which is published in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, Habtoor said he had once supported Trump’s presidential bid but had realized “I was wrong and do not mind admitting it.” Although there was muted support for Trump in some quarters in the region, Arab leaders issued a statement Thursday after a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Saudi Arabia expressing “deep concern” about the “hostile, racist and inhumane rhetoric against refugees in general and Muslims in particular.” The Akoya development, centered on a golf course bearing Trump’s name, is in the finishing stages, with the first 50 villas due to be handed over to buyers within weeks. The entire development is expected to be completed next year. Even by Dubai’s extravagant standards, it has been touted as an exclusive neighborhood, with villas fringing a central golf course, and with private, man-made “beaches” around vast lakes and parklands. [Along with Trump’s rhetoric, the stakes for 2016 have risen dramatically] At the site Thursday, there was frenzied activity, with dozens of workers putting in overtime to finish the multimillion-dollar mansions on time. Much of the development was off-limits because of construction, but an on-site sales office featured a scale model of the master plan. Many of the workers spoke about Trump and the project on the condition of anonymity because they feared losing their jobs. One Pakistani worker said he usually earns $231 a month but was working 12 hours a day, six days a week to earn overtime, taking his monthly income to $354. He sends most of his earnings to his family in Pakistan, where he has a wife and 5-year-old son he has not seen in two years. “I don’t know who Donald Trump is, but he can say what he likes about his country. It is not like I will ever get to visit America anyway,” he said. “He is entitled to speak about America, but what right does he have to come here if he does not like Muslims or Muslim countries?” He looked shocked when told the starting price for villas in the complex was nearly $1 million. “What can one do? This is the way of the world,” he sighed. Another worker also said he had never heard of Donald Trump. “But I doubt Muslims will be banned from America,” he said. “What about all the Muslims who already live there?” |