Trump Organization is reportedly selling lease on D.C. hotel for $375 million


The Trump Organization has reached an agreement to sell its lease for the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for $375 million, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
The Miami-based investment firm CGI Merchant Group is set to acquire the lease, and has reached a deal with Hilton Worldwide Holdings to remove the Trump name and rebrand the property as a Waldorf Astoria, the Journal reports. Once a post office, the property is owned by the federal government, and the lease is for nearly 100 years.
During the Trump presidency, the hotel became a hot spot for Republican organizations, foreign leaders, and companies angling for government approvals, and several lawsuits were filed claiming that the property was in violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause.
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The Trump International Hotel opened five years ago, and while investigating the lease terms during the Trump presidency, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform found that the property lost more than $70 million between 2016 and 2020. Trump's most recent financial disclosure states that the hotel generated roughly $150 million in revenue over four years.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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