Trump Tower Manila and Trump Tower Punta del Este: Licensing Deals with a Philippine Trade Envoy and a Financially Troubled Uruguayan Project
Tier 4No Active Investigation2011-01-01 to 2022-10-31
Factual Summary
The Trump Organization entered licensing agreements for branded towers in both the Philippines and Uruguay, creating business relationships with politically connected partners in countries where U.S. foreign policy was active during Trump's presidency.
Trump Tower Manila is a 57-story, $150 million residential tower in the Century City development in Manila, developed by Century Properties Group under a licensing agreement with Trump Marks Philippines LLC. The tower was completed and opened in November 2017. The chairman of Century Properties, Jose E.B. Antonio, was one of the Philippines' highest-profile businessmen.
Shortly before Trump's election victory in November 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Antonio as the Philippines' special envoy to the United States for trade, investment, and economic affairs. This appointment meant that the man writing licensing fee checks to the Trump family simultaneously served as his country's official representative to Washington. Antonio had previously served as the Philippines' special trade envoy to China. When questioned about the apparent conflict, Antonio told reporters: "Is it a crime that I know the president-elect? Is it odd that we have done business with his family?"
No formal investigation was opened into whether Antonio's dual role influenced U.S. policy toward the Philippines, including Trump's warm public posture toward Duterte despite widespread international criticism of Duterte's extrajudicial killing campaign in the Philippine drug war.
Trump Tower Punta del Este in Uruguay was developed by YY Development Group, an Argentine firm led by managing partner Moises Yellati and associate Felipe Yaryura. The licensing agreement was signed in 2012. According to Trump's May 2016 financial disclosure, he received between $100,001 and $1 million in royalties from Trump Marks Punta del Este LLC. Yellati and Yaryura attended Trump's election night victory party and all three presidential debates with Hillary Clinton.
Yellati is the brother-in-law of Argentina's Finance Minister Nicolas Dujovne, whose father, Bernardo Dujovne, founded the architectural firm designing the tower. Units were priced between $550,000 and $8 million, with 65 to 75 percent reportedly sold as of January 2017.
The project encountered severe financial difficulties. Construction fell a year behind schedule due to poor apartment sales, and YY Development reduced unit sizes and prices in response. Argentina, home to three quarters of the tower's buyers, suffered a recession and currency crisis. Construction halted entirely in October 2019 when the project ran out of money. A trust formed by the owners restarted construction in November 2020, and the building opened in October 2022.
Punta del Este has been characterized in financial reporting as a destination associated with money laundering and tax evasion by Argentine nationals, though no evidence has emerged that the Trump project itself was involved in money laundering.
Primary Sources
1. Trump financial disclosure forms, Office of Government Ethics, covering 2015 through 2018
2. NPR: "Who's The New Philippine Envoy? The Man Building Trump Tower Manila," November 2016: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/11/22/502895797/whos-the-new-philippine-envoy-the-man-building-trump-tower-manila
3. Center for American Progress: "Trump's Conflicts of Interest in Uruguay," June 2017: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-conflicts-interest-uruguay/
4. Center for American Progress: "Trump's Conflicts of Interest in the Philippines," June 2017: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-conflicts-interest-philippines/
Corroborating Sources
1. Quartz: "Donald Trump's potential conflicts of interest in the Philippines center around one man," November 2016
2. Bloomberg: "Trump's Business Partner Will Be Manila's Man in Washington," November 2016
3. Bloomberg: "Uruguay Trump Tower Has Lots of Issues, Least of Which Is Trump," June 2018
4. National Memo: "Report: Trump Organization Project In Uruguay Is Failing," 2018
Counterarguments and Context
Antonio and Century Properties have stated that their business relationship with the Trump Organization began years before Trump entered politics and that business dealings and diplomatic duties are separate matters. The Trump Organization maintained that these were standard brand-licensing agreements in which the organization has no role in project management, sales, or operations. In the case of Punta del Este, the project's financial difficulties stemmed from macroeconomic conditions in Argentina rather than from any misconduct by the Trump Organization. No regulatory or legal body has formally investigated either project for conflicts of interest, and no evidence of financial fraud in either deal has been established.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 4 because the facts are documented through investigative reporting and public financial disclosures, but no formal investigation has examined the conflicts of interest. The Manila case is notable because the dual role of Jose Antonio as both Trump licensing partner and Philippine trade envoy to the United States represents one of the most concrete examples of overlapping business and diplomatic interests in the Trump portfolio. The Uruguay case illustrates the financial risks borne by foreign buyers who paid premium prices for Trump-branded properties that subsequently experienced severe construction delays and funding shortfalls.