Circle shareholder sues Trump over UAE-linked deals with World Liberty Financial

A longtime Circle shareholder has taken President Donald Trump to court. The claim is that two UAE-linked deals with his family’s crypto venture violated the Constitution and cost Circle real money. The suit was filed Thursday. It targets the President and World Liberty Financial, and it centers on the Foreign Emoluments Clause. The plaintiff argues the deals steered stablecoin business away from Circle’s USDC, at an estimated annual cost of $70 million to $82 million. What the lawsuit alleges The case was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Trump is named in his official capacity. World Liberty Financial LLC and its affiliates are also defendants. The complaint also reaches Steve Witkoff, the US Special Envoy to the Middle East. Two transactions sit at the heart of the case. The first is a $500 million sale of a 49% stake in World Liberty. The buyer was an entity associated with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The second came later: Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund made a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin. The plaintiff’s core argument is a competitive one. These deals allegedly handed World Liberty’s stablecoin operation an unfair edge, parti...