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Trump’s golf resort in Miami was already in trouble at the time this photo was taken in June 2017. Things have since only gotten worse.
Angel Valentin for the Washington Post
Revenue at Donald Trump’s Miami golf resort plunged by more than 40% last year, according to the former president’s latest financial disclosure report. The document lists “golf resort related revenues” of $44.2 million, down from the $77.2 million that the property received in 2019.
The decrease may be even more dramatic than the documents suggest, since federal guidelines ask officials to record figures from the current and previous calendar years on their final reports. That means the $44.2 million could include some sales from January 2021, as well as the revenue from 2020.
The resort had to shut down operations in the early days of the pandemic, and hundreds of workers lost their jobs. On June 10, Eric Trump, who helped run the Trump Organization while his father was in office, tweeted that the property would be reopening its hospitality business within days. Donald Trump retweeted the message to more than 80 million followers, but even that didn’t help much. On June 18, when the place officially reopened, two front desk agents said only 38 of the property’s 643 rooms had been booked.
Before the pandemic, Trump National Doral was already facing challenges. In 2015, the resort generated $92.1 million of revenue and hauled in $13.8 million of operating income. As Trump’s political career progressed, however, those numbers worsened. In 2016, revenue fell to $87.5 million and operating income decreased to $12.4 million, according to documents obtained through a public records request. The next year, revenue plummeted to $75.4 million, and operating income sank to $4.3 million. Sales ticked up slightly in 2018 and 2019, but they remained a long way off of their 2015 highs.
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the 2020 crash should be especially troubling for the former president, since he took out $125 million of debt from Deutsche Bank at the property. It seems unlikely that the resort produced enough profit to cover the interest on those loans last year. They come due in 2023.