The gold-tinted image depicts a certain type of corporate paradise. A couple chats on a lounge chair, another pair laughs by a fire pit. More sit under awnings.
Behind them, yards from waves lapping at a shoreline, stands the base of a vast and complicated glass structure emblazoned with the word “Trump,” glinting in the AI-generated setting sunlight.
“The next chapter in the global Trump portfolio,” declares the headline on the website. “The next ultra-luxury address is coming soon to Australia’s iconic Gold Coast.”
But the image, and the website where it was found, have been deleted. The project, a Trump International Hotel and Tower in the land down under, is no more.
David Young, CEO of Australia’s Altus Property Group, the developer behind the $1.1 billion tower plan, says the war in Iran has made the Trump brand too “toxic to Australians” for the project to continue.
The Trump Organization has blamed Young’s company, accusing it of being “unable to meet the most basic financial obligation” and deriding the use of “world events” as “a ploy to distract from his own defaults and failures.”
“The Trump brand and what it represents”
In February, the president’s son Eric Trump posted an AI-generated image of a new Trump Tower in the seaside resort of Surfer’s Paradise, in Gold Coast, heralding what he said would “soon be the tallest building” in Australia.
Young, at the same time, posted a photo of himself shaking hands with Eric, and the developer said the 91-story building would cost about $1.1 billion and that it was a project 19 years in the making.
Less than three months later, it ended with finger pointing.
In a statement sent to CBS News’ partner network the BBC on Tuesday, Young wrote: “Let’s just say that with the Iran war and everything else, the Trump brand was increasingly toxic in Australia.”
Young rejected the claim that Altus group hadn’t met financial obligations, and wrote on LinkedIn that the company plans to carry on with the project Trump name or affiliation.
A spokesperson for the Trump organization told CBS News it had been “very excited” about the project but that it had fallen through “after months of negotiations and empty promise, after empty promise.”
“Mr Young’s attempt to blame certain world events for our termination of the agreement is merely a ploy to distract from his own defaults and failures,” the spokesperson said.
In a lengthy, and more conciliatory LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Young said it was “grossly unfair” that the Trump brand’s reputation had been tarnished by “recent events,” as the brand “has nothing to do with the President.”
He added that there was “no acrimony between the Trump family and myself,” and said the decision was “pure business.”
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate, who met with the president and Eric Trump at Mar-a-Lago before the deal was announced, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that no development application was filed for the project.
When asked why the deal had fallen through, he said neither side was happy with their profit margins, and “it’s all about the money.”
Australia’s ABC network recently reported that Young had twice declared bankruptcy. The Altus Property Group did not immediately respond to a CBS News request for comment.
A petition against the development started by Gold Coast residents — who cited their discomfort with “the Trump brand and what it represents,” had garnered at least 140,000 signatures by Wednesday.
On Monday, Eric Trump posted another AI-generated image of a Trump Tower, this time in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
The building is set to become “the tallest building in Georgia,” he wrote. “We are so excited to bring it to life!”