Trump Sons BLASTED Over Ties to $1B Mining Deal!

The New York Post just called the president’s own sons a “shame of the nation” — and the evidence behind that headline is hard to ignore.

Story Snapshot

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s investment firm acquired a 20% stake in a company tied to a Kazakhstan tungsten mining project that received up to $1.6 billion in preliminary U.S. federal financing.
President Trump personally called the Kazakh president to help push the deal forward before his sons’ firm took its stake.
Federal filings show Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick family businesses have financial ties to at least 14 companies working on critical mineral projects backed by U.S. government money.
Eric Trump publicly denied holding a stake, directly contradicting the New York Times report that broke the story.
Congress has taken no action, and the White House says government decisions were not influenced by family business interests.

When the New York Post Turns on the Trump Sons, Pay Attention

The New York Post is not a left-wing paper. It is one of the most reliably pro-Trump publications in America. So when its op-ed page calls Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump a “shame of the nation,” that is not routine media criticism. That is a five-alarm signal that something has gone badly wrong. The story at the center of it involves a tungsten mine in Kazakhstan, $1.6 billion in U.S. taxpayer-backed financing, and a family investment firm that appears to have landed a 20% stake in the deal.^[3]

The New York Times reported that Dominari Securities, an investment firm partly owned by Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, acquired that stake in a company connected to the Kazakhstan project. The U.S. Commerce Department had already approved preliminary financing applications worth up to $1.6 billion for the project. President Trump himself reportedly joined a phone call with Kazakhstan’s president to help persuade him to greenlight the deal. The sequence matters: government support came first, then the sons’ firm moved in.^[5]

The $1.6 Billion Question Nobody in Washington Is Asking Out Loud

The Kazakhstan project is not a small side bet. It involves tungsten, a metal critical to U.S. defense manufacturing. The joint venture pairs American firm Cove Capital with Kazakhstan’s state mining company, Tau-Ken Samruk, with Cove holding a 70% interest. The U.S. Export-Import Bank expressed interest in financing $900 million of the deal. The Commerce Department approved preliminary applications for up to $1.6 billion total. That is public money flowing toward a project in which the president’s sons reportedly hold a private financial stake.^[5]^[11]

The conflict of interest picture gets wider from there. Federal filings reviewed by the New York Times show that Trump and Lutnick family businesses have financial ties to at least 14 companies working on critical mineral projects that have received federal government support. Political commentator Amy Siskind put a dollar figure on it, writing that Trump’s and Lutnick’s sons have been involved in 14 rare mineral deals collectively financed or set to be financed by $8.9 billion in U.S. taxpayer money. That number has not been independently verified, but the underlying claim about 14 companies comes directly from federal filings.^[5]^[13]

Eric Trump Says It Is Not True — But the Details Are Murky

Eric Trump posted a flat denial on X, saying he does not hold a stake in the Kazakh miner. That denial cannot simply be dismissed. It is an on-record statement from one of the two men named in the report. But it also cannot end the conversation. The New York Times report does not name the exact legal entity in which Dominari Securities acquired its stake, which makes independent verification difficult. Eric Trump’s denial and the Times report can both be technically true if the stake was structured through a layered entity rather than a direct holding. That ambiguity is itself a problem. Transparency would resolve it in minutes. The fact that it has not been resolved is telling.^[5]^[9]

– The X post reports on a New York Times investigation detailing preliminary U.S. federal approvals for up to $1.6 billion in financing via the Export-Import Bank and Development Finance Corporation for Kaz Resources' tungsten mining project in Kazakhstan. – Donald Trump Jr. and…

— Scooter (@scotthow5231) June 30, 2026

Former Undersecretary of State Richard Stengle called the arrangement “corruption at scale” and a “multi-billion dollar insider trading conflict of interest regime” that violates conflict of interest laws and the emoluments clause. That is a serious legal claim from a serious former official. No charges have been filed. Congress has not opened an investigation. Speaker Johnson has pledged to protect Trump donors and associates from investigations. The institutional machinery that would normally catch this kind of conflict is, at the moment, not running.^[4]

The Bigger Problem Is the Pattern, Not Just This Deal

The Trump administration’s broader critical minerals strategy is, on its face, a legitimate national security priority. China dominates global rare earth supply chains. The U.S. needs alternatives. Project Vault, the administration’s sweeping minerals initiative, combines $2 billion in private capital with a $10 billion U.S. Export-Import Bank loan to break that dependence. Taking government equity stakes in strategic mining companies is a defensible policy tool. The problem is not the policy. The problem is who is personally profiting from it alongside the taxpayer.^[14]

When the president’s sons’ investment firm shows up with a 20% stake in the same project the president personally lobbied a foreign leader to approve, the line between public interest and private enrichment disappears. Common sense and basic conservative principles of accountability both demand the same thing here: full disclosure of Dominari Securities’ investment agreement, a public accounting of all 14 companies tied to Trump and Lutnick family finances, and an independent review of the decision-making process behind the $1.6 billion in federal financing. The New York Post was right to call this out. The question now is whether anyone with actual power will do the same.