reported that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were tied to a Kazakhstan tungsten deal that moved forward after the Trump administration approved preliminary applications for up to $1.6 billion in federal financing for Kaz Resources. The deal was signed on Nov. 6, six days after an investment involving the Trump sons and their partners that was not publicly disclosed at the time.
That is why the report is drawing attention now: it describes a fast-moving transaction in which two of Donald Trump’s sons were linked to a foreign mining project while their father’s administration was still handling the financing review. The report said the sons used a September meeting between Howard Lutnick and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to help Kaz Resources gain access to tungsten mines, a move that tied a private deal directly to a public meeting.
The finances around the project were not small. Dominari Securities agreed to take a 20 percent stake in the tungsten projects, and Cantor Fitzgerald helped one of the lead investors working with Dominari on the Kazakh deal raise $210 million in new capital for a related entity. The report also said one or both families had financial ties to at least 14 companies actively working with the federal government on critical mining deals, widening the picture beyond a single transaction.
What makes the arrangement harder to dismiss is the sequence. The preliminary federal financing came first, then the September meeting, then the capital raise, and only later the signed deal. By the time the paperwork was completed, the investment tied to the Trump sons and their partners had already been in motion, even though it had not been publicly disclosed when it mattered most.
The mining story also sits beside a broader pattern described in the report, which said the second Trump administration has been marked by repeated overlaps between public power and private gain. In that same vein, Donald Trump Jr. is on the board of BlinkRX, which was singled out in a separate joint report called The Price of Corruption: How Trump’s Pay-to-Play Administration is Driving Up Costs for Working Families, after TrumpRX was rolled out earlier in 2026 as a way for Americans to access cheaper prescription drugs.
For now, the central unanswered question is not whether the deal existed. It did. The open question is how much Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, directly or indirectly, stand to make from it, and how far the money trail runs through the financing, the 20 percent stake and the related capital raise before any federal dollars are actually disbursed.
