A shell company backed by Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump has reportedly merged with a critical minerals group that last year was lined up for $1.6bn in US government support to mine critical mineral tungsten in Kazakhstan.

Reporting on the deal, the Financial Times on April 30 said that it will add to the Trump family’s sprawling business empire. Word of the US leader’s sons’ stake in the mining venture in the Central Asian country came shortly after IntelliNews reported on a wave of Balkan investments linked to President Donald Trump and his associates that are sparking transparency concerns.

Details of the American opportunity to mine tungsten emerged weeks before last November’s unprecedented White House summit that brought President Trump together with the five presidents of Central Asia. Trump declared at the gathering that the US would strengthen relations with the region “like never before”. Describing Central Asia as “an extremely wealthy region”, in a reference to its natural resources, he also remarked: “Sadly, previous American presidents neglected this region completely.” The occasion of the summit was also memorable in that Kazakhstan’s President Kassym Jomart-Tokayev told Trump he was “a statesman sent by heaven”.

Tungsten is a vital metal used in munitions and other defence items, but as things stand, America is much reliant on China for supplies.

The company the FT reported that the Trump brothers bought into, last August, is construction group Skyline Builders Group Holding (Nasdaq: SKBL). They took stakes through a special purpose vehicle run by a subsidiary of Dominari Securities (a subsidiary of Dominari Holdings Inc (Nasdaq: DOMH)), according to three people familiar with the deal cited by the UK daily.

On September 22, Tokayev told Trump that he intended to award a major tungsten project to US investment group Cove Kaz Capital, according to a person familiar with the discussion spoken to by the FT. Cove Kaz, backed by the US government, was competing against Chinese and Russian rivals interested in the tungsten.

Details of the Trump-Tokayev informal agreement appeared in press reports on October 21 and the two Trump sons added to their Skyline position on October 28, contributing to a private placement that delivered almost $24mn, according to sources of the British publication.

Filings record how on October 31, Skyline agreed it would pay $20mn for a 20% stake in a company with “significant critical minerals assets in Asia”.

That company turns out to be Kaz Resources. It is a unit of New York-based mining investment group Cove Capital, the entity that controls Cove Kaz, according to three people familiar with the matter who provided details to the FT.

On November 6, at the time of the summit, Cove Capital and the National Mining Company of Kazakhstan announced a deal to develop “the largest known undeveloped tungsten resource in the world”. 

On April 30, in a press release that did not mention the Trump brothers, Skyline announced its merger agreement with Cove Kaz Capital and Kaz Resources. It said the newly created company would trade on the Nasdaq as Kaz Resources Inc (Nasdaq: KAZR).

The federally-funded US Export-Import Bank and Development Finance Corporation last year committed to awarding up to $1.6bn to support the development of the Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty tungsten projects in central Kazakhstan. Seventy percent of the projects is now held by Cove Kaz.

There is no suggestion that Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump were aware that Cove was on the point of securing a contract from the Trump administration when they committed to their initial investments in Skyline through Dominari subsidiary American Ventures, or that they had any influence in the awarding of the contract.

“Don is a passive investor in American Ventures and has no operational involvement in the company,” his spokesperson told the FT, adding: “He does not interface with the federal government on behalf of any company he invests in or advises.”

The newspaper said Eric Trump did not respond to requests for comment sent to the Trump Organization and American Bitcoin, an enterprise he co-founded. The White House, meanwhile, was said to have not immediately responded to a request for comment.