President Trump’s company had high hopes for a Uruguayan condominium development. But the long-delayed project has become a microcosm of the Trump Organization’s deep problems.
PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay — President Trump’s son Eric traveled in January to Punta del Este, a Uruguayan beach town on a spit of land jutting into the South Atlantic Ocean.
He was en route to one of the Trump family company’s most ambitious ongoing development projects — a 25-story, 156-condominium waterfront tower, complete with an indoor tennis court, multiple swimming pools and a rooftop helipad. “It’s incredible,” Eric Trump said to reporters on the trip. “We have the best building anywhere in Punta del Este, anywhere in South America.”
Instead, the cylindrical high-rise is turning into the latest debacle in the Trump Organization’s far-flung property portfolio — featuring a little-known Argentine real estate firm in a gaudy, hard-partying town that has been a destination for money launderers and tax evaders.