The Beachline: Trump Jr's friend cuts a curious path from Pakistan to Bangladesh via Turkey. Who is he?
New Delhi: Who is Gentry Thomas Beach? This question looms large over US President Donald Trump puzzlingly even-handed remarks on Pakistan following Operation Sindoor, in turn, putting the spotlight on his family's dealings with Pakistan's deep state.
Beach, a Texas-based investor and a college friend of Donald Trump Jr, it appears, was there right at the start - Pakistan, Turkey and Bangladesh.
On January 30, within 10 days of Trump's oath-taking, Beach was in Islamabad projecting himself as a 'Trump associate'. He brought with him a team of potential investors under the umbrella firm White Bridge Global.He met Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif, as reported in Pakistan media, and told him: "America cares about Pakistan... You are our front face in the entire region, very important."Beach went on to pledge "billions of dollars" to recast the skyline of Karachi and Islamabad. "Through White Bridge Real Estate, we are prepared to invest in and develop landmark projects that meet global standards."
Then, he went on to sign a deal with Pakistan company Apex Energy for exploration and development of placer gold deposits estimated at $50 trillion, as per local reports. Incidentally, a couple of months ago, the National Engineering Services of Pakistan claimed that they have located a vast placer gold block, apparently worth Rs 80,000 crore, near Indus river in Attock.The scientific logic is that these are gold deposits off the Himalayas, mixed in the sediments of the Indus and now deposited in the lower reaches of the river. Placer mining is the excavation technology to separate gold from its sediments.Plus, Beach's two-day visit also saw Pakistan exploring the possibility of joint mining for critical minerals that can somehow get Islamabad into US Defence Department's Trusted Partner Programme.
This visit was organised through the Pakistan's Special Investment Facilitation Council. Formed in 2023, it's led by the Pakistan PM but has Pakistan army chief Asim Munir as member of the apex committee. The National Coordinator, a key member of both the apex and the executive committee, is also an army officer, Lt Gen Sarfaraz Ahmed, and so is the Director General, SIFC, Maj Gen Tabassum Habib. Such was Beach's confidence in his Trump credentials that he even clarified to Pakistan media on US Special Presidential Envoy Richard Grennel's support for Imran Khan. "He may have been misled on Pakistan," he reportedly said.From Islamabad, Beach went to Dhaka, where he met Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Younus and the Jamaat-e-Islami leadership along with officials of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority. As per some reports, there he fronted his other company Highground Holdings to express interest in investing in Bangladesh's minerals and energy sectors.Interestingly, White Bridge Global's other big deal was inked on Tuesday with Turkish firm Terra Holdings to set up a 50-50 joint venture in Dubai, completing a worry-for-India arch connecting Turkey, Pakistan and the new regime in Bangladesh.Beach and Trump Jr were together at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, in the 1990s. Both hit headlines recently in the course of a decades-long trial and retrial of a case between Beach and his former employee Touradji Consultants.A raft of emails surfaced in the proceedings, essentially exchanges between Beach and Trump Jr that conveyed racial slur. The former has since moved an application in the court to redact those mails on grounds that they have little relevance to the case at hand.Either way, the association runs deep and the nature of the quick South Asia trip, right after Trump became president is likely to raise questions in the light of his remarks post-Op Sindoor as well as the recent cryptocurrency deal between World Liberty Financial, which has links with Trump's family, and Pakistan's hurriedly created Crypto Council.Meanwhile, a web page has been launched called White Bridge Pakistan (whitebridgepakistan.com). It says: Launching Soon.
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