"Doral was far and away the best physical facility for this meeting," acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said in announcing the decision on Thursday, local time. He said that the administration examined 10 sites before choosing this one. Mulvaney quoted an anonymous site-selection official as saying: "It's almost like they built this facility to host this type of event." White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announces that the G7 will be held at Trump's resort. Credit:AP The G-7 Summit rotates between sites chosen by the seven member countries and the European Union. The last time it was held in the US, in 2012, President Barack Obama held it at the government-owned retreat at Camp David in Maryland. In 2004, President George W. Bush held it at the exclusive, isolated resort of Sea Island, Georgia. This year, Trump had hinted repeatedly that he intended to award the event to himself. At the G-7 Summit in August in Biarritz, France, Trump said his aides had examined other sites and told him that Doral is the best. The site is set among office parks, in an inland area near the Miami airport. "They went to places all over the country, and they came back and they said, 'This is where we'd like to be,' " Trump said then. "It's not about me. It's about getting the right location." He particularly praised the club's ample parking.

Doral is a major part of Trump's portfolio: It provides more revenue to him than any other hotel or golf club, and he took out $US125 million ($183 million) in loans to buy it. But, in recent years, this keystone property has fallen into steep decline, with profits falling 69 per cent in three years. An expert hired by the Trump Organisation blamed the drop on Trump's politicised brand. Trump's Doral resort, pictured, has been announced as the host of the 2020 G7 summit. Credit:AP Trump's properties have hosted US government officials before, and the company says it does not seek to make a profit off that business. But even so, Trump's properties can be expensive: at his Mar-a-Lago Club, for instance, the government paid Trump's company $US546 per night for each staffer staying in the club's guest rooms, and another $US1,000 for a single night of drinking by White House aides at one of Mar-a-Lago's bars. In this case, Trump's son Eric Trump - who helps run the Trump Organisation while his father is President - recently said that, if Doral was the choice, Trump would not over-charge his own government.

"It actually would have saved the US a tremendous amount of money in that they wouldn't be paying for massive amounts of rooms with some hospitality company that's going to milk the hell out of the US government," Eric Trump said at a forum put on by Yahoo! Finance last week. For the Trump Organisation, the event would still bring guests to fill unfilled rooms as well as a glut of global publicity. Trump has visited his own properties more than 100 times as President, sometimes bringing along foreign leaders. Those visits have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for his businesses, as the US government - and other governments - pay for their personnel to accompany him. But this is something on a different scale: seven foreign leaders, plus hundreds of other foreign personnel, would be housed at Trump's resort near the Miami airport. Trump is already facing lawsuits for allegedly violating the Constitution's ban on receiving "emoluments" from foreign governments. By doing this, he could be inviting a huge increase in the very line of business that these lawsuits are scrutinising.

Trump bought the 57-year-old Doral golf resort in 2012, taking out $US125 million in loans from Deutsche Bank to finance the purchase. He then poured money into renovating it, relying heavily on a crew of Hispanic stone workers that included some undocumented immigrants, according to members of the crew. Trump awarded the 2020 G-7 Summit of world leaders to his own private company. Credit:AP Since 2015, however, the 643-room club's revenue and profits have both nosedived, according to figures that the Trump Organisation provided to Miami-Dade County last year. "They are severely underperforming" other resorts in the area, tax consultant Jessica Vachiratevanurak, who had been hired by Trump, told a county official last year in a bid to lower the property's tax bill. Vachiratevanurak said the club's net operating income - a key figure, representing the amount left over after expenses are paid - had fallen by 69 per cent as of 2017. The Trump Organisation itself has disputed that: it says the real problems scaring visitors away are the Zika virus and hurricanes. Doral revenue rebounded slightly in 2018, according to Trump's presidential financial disclosures, though it is unclear if profits went up or down.

In recent years, Doral has turned to Trump's political allies to replace some of its lost revenue: Last weekend, for instance, it hosted a pro-Trump group called "American Priority." Shown at that event: a violent video showing Trump shooting, stabbing and beheading both members of the media and some Democratic opponents, according to The New York Times. Loading The selection of Doral as the site of the G-7 seems to signal the collapse of promises made by both Donald Trump and Eric Trump at the start of the Trump presidency, when they pledged to create separation between Trump's private business and his new public office. "I will be leaving my great business in total," Trump said then. "There are lines that we would never cross, and that's mixing business with anything government," Eric Trump said in 2017.