Trump International Golf Club Dubai still has its fountains, its skyline views and a gift shop stocked with Make America Great Again hats. What it does not have anymore, based on conversations at the clubhouse bar on a recent evening, is many people willing to defend the man whose name is on the building.
The Washington Post sent a reporter to the clubhouse, and the accounts that came back painted a consistent picture. The patrons who spoke, a mix of British expatriates, Gulf businessmen and regional residents, arrived at the same conclusion from different directions: the Iran war cost Trump something he had spent his Gulf tour carefully building, and he has not gotten it back.
Bertie Jones, a 23-year-old British national, got straight to it. “On the business side, I thought he was going to do a lot,” he said. “But I’ve lost all trust in him.”
Omar Al Busaidy, a Dubai businessman who had welcomed Trump’s return to office, said Gulf leaders had consistently delivered the same message to Washington before the war began: “Don’t poke the bear.” “I’m not going to lie, I had high hopes – but we got played,” Busaidy said, adding that Trump had “either miscalculated or misread the situation.”
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For Dubai specifically, the war has carried a price that goes well beyond opinion polls.
Dubai billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor published a widely shared open letter criticizing Trump’s decision to drag the region into conflict. The UAE was among the countries Iran targeted with missile and drone strikes earlier in the year, and the tourism industry that sustains much of Dubai’s economy took damage that is still being assessed.
Tom, a resident who asked to use only his first name, told the Post that Trump had caused “horrendous regional destabilization” and made it difficult “for anyone to like him.”
Neil Rodgers, a 57-year-old British resident, focused on the sequence of events. “He escalated the war and then it seems like he’s walked away,” Rodgers said.
Nasser Hassan Al Shaikh, a businessman and former UAE government official, offered a precise summary: “We don’t know what was going through Trump’s mind when he started this war, but we did know the potential repercussions, and we know there was no knockout.”
Khaled Al Kaabi added: “Trump has only created problems for the world, then left others to solve them.”
Even those still showing up to play the course acknowledged something closer to discomfort than loyalty. Richard Lucking, who served in the British military and now organizes events in Dubai, said the club had taken on a different quality since the war began. “It feels a little questionable these days,” he said, before noting that he kept coming anyway.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
