Critics are attacking the Trump administration for a deal to let the United Arab Emirates access cutting-edge U.S. technology, accusing the White House of offering the country preferential treatment because a U.A.E. royal invested millions in a Trump family cryptocurrency company last year.
The Commerce Department announced on Friday that it will allow the U.S. ally license-free access to crucial technology such as AI chips. That status will extend to U.A.E. companies such as G42, which is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser.
Four days before President Trump’s inauguration, another Tahnoon-backed company reportedly spent $500 million to buy what was initially a secret 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s fledgling crypto firm. The deal reportedly sent an immediate $187 million to Trump entities and helped fuel the family’s crypto empire.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the change in Commerce Department export controls a “corrupt deal” in a statement on Friday.
“[Commerce] Secretary Howard Lutnick and Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler need to testify in front of the Committee to explain this corrupt deal and how it could put our national security at risk,” she wrote. “And Congress should not pass any crypto legislation that does not stop the President and his family from continuing to profit off of crypto.”
The Independent has contacted the White House, Commerce Department, UAE embassy in Washington and G42 for comment.
In its announcement, the Commerce Department said the deal was in part based on the “UAE’s status as a U.S. Major Defense Partner and its support in advancing U.S. national security interests,” including assistance during the Iran war.
Others argued the deal will harm U.S. companies and could open the door to China accessing sensitive American technologies, given G42’s past work with Chinese tech giant Huawei.
“This is a HUGE deal, poses massive national security risks, will slow the US AI buildout, and will cause the largest data centers in the world to be built in the UAE instead of the US,” Chris McGuire, a former Biden administration official overseeing tech policy, wrote on X.
Others saw positives in the expanding U.S. and UAE collaboration on AI, arguing that it’s preferable that U.S. firms and allies lead the way instead of China in building the large-scale data centers required to develop AI models.
“As things stand, the United States does not have the political will, grid capacity, or streamlined interconnection queues necessary to install all of the compute we need to cheaply offer AI services to global publics,” American Enterprise Institute fellow Ryan Fedasiuk wrote on X. “I wish we did, but we don’t. We will need to lean on international partners to share in the burden of the global AI build-out.”
The Commerce Department said Friday’s announcement was consistent with the terms of the export deal between U.S. and the UAE that was finalized in May of last year.
A G42 employee held a job at World Liberty while that 2025 deal was being negotiated, The New York Times reported. All sides have denied any conflict of interest was involved in the dealmaking.
President Trump has continued to face scrutiny over his ties to Tahnoon, especially after recent financial disclosures showed the Republican made more than $1 billion personally last year from the Trump family’s crypto companies.
Part of that windfall came from MGX, another company chaired by Tahnoon, which used $2 billion in a World Liberty coin in an investment into Binance, a crypto company whose founder Trump pardoned last year. MGX is also among the new owners of the U.S. operations of TikTok, after the Trump administration leaned on the social platform to spin off an American division.
In 2022, U.S. intelligence agencies obtained information that the U.A.E. transferred technology to Huawei via G42 that ultimately enabled China to extend the range of its air-to-air missiles, the Financial Times reported. G42 called the reporting “false and defamatory” at the time.
G42 reportedly cut ties with Huawei as part of a 2024 investment deal from Microsoft.
