Massad Boulos: The Lebanese billionaire behind Trump’s Arab-American votes

Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency has been driven by a mix of factors, including high inflation, concerns over immigration, and mounting resentment toward elite-centric politics.

Yet, frustration with the Biden administration’s indifference to the suffering of Palestinians and Lebanese civilians under Israeli attacks has also fuelled discontent and anger among Arab-American voters, particularly in swing states like Michigan.

According to observers, Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American billionaire has leveraged his strong connections within the Arab-American community to bolster Donald Trump’s support among Arab-American and Muslim voters—a demographic previously less aligned with the Republican Party.

His connection to Trump—through his son Michael Boulos’s marriage to Tiffany Trump, the younger daughter of the president-elect—has added a personal dimension to his Republican advocacy.

Massad Boulos’s efforts, alongside domestic factors like economic fallout and international crises like Israel's war in Gaza, and now assault on Lebanon, have contributed to a shift in favour of Trump, especially in battleground states like Michigan, where disillusionment with the Biden administration’s approach to Palestinian and Lebanese issues has run high.

Boulos, a naturalised US citizen and University of Houston law graduate, has long-standing ties with key figures across the Arab-American community.

"I have probably spent five or six months with them,” said Boulos, during a pre-election interview, reflecting on his outreach to Michigan’s diverse Arab-American population, which includes people of Yemeni, Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, and Egyptian heritage.

Strong connections

Boulos belongs to an affluent Lebanese family that owns Boulos Enterprises, of which he is the current CEO.

With a Lebanese background and ties to influential Christian Lebanese parties, including the Marada Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Boulos has extended his influence across both American and Lebanese political spheres.

Though both Marada and FPM represent Lebanon’s Christian voters, they maintain political alliances with Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim group with strong ties with Iran.

Boulos, who describes Marada leader Suleiman Frangieh as a “friend,” acknowledges his connections to Lebanon’s complex political landscape, where ideologically diverse factions sometimes cooperate to achieve mutual goals.

Lebanon, a diverse country with Christian, Druze and Muslim populations, has gone through a devastating civil war between 1975 and 1990, has a complicated political environment, allowing sometimes ideologically distant groups like Hezbollah and Christian parties to work together to reach their own political objectives.

While Boulos denies aspirations for a Lebanese parliamentary seat, AP reported that the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter launched a campaign to get elected for a member of the country’s legislative body in 2009. According to Arab News, Boulos also ran for another short campaign in 2018.

Growing influence in US politics

In Trump’s second term, Massad Boulos—a lifelong Republican of over three decades—sees an expanding role for himself in steering segments of the Arab-American community back toward the conservative fold.

“Historically speaking, mainly due to conservative values and other economic factors, most of the Arab-American communities or voters used to vote Republican in the past. Unfortunately, this changed in post-9/11,” he said.

With the September 11 attacks, many Muslim and Arab-Americans shifted toward the Democratic Party, alienating from George W. Bush’s aggressive Middle East policy and Iraq invasion in 2003.

But Boulos views that this trend can be reversed.

He argued that Trump’s pragmatic Middle East approach, which prioritises peace over wars, contrasted with the Democrats’ “woke” ideology. Trump’s approach resonated with core Arab and Muslim-American values, he said.

As Trump’s campaign coordinator for Arab relations, Boulos is keen to play a prominent role in shaping the administration’s Middle East policy.

In an interview with Lebanese channel Al-Jadeed, he hinted at his influence, saying, “I am a US citizen. But I will be responsible for negotiating with the Lebanese side…Trump will appoint someone familiar with the Israeli file to negotiate with the Israelis.”