"It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight," the president wrote. "He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace."
The president had traveled to New York on Friday to visit his ailing brother.
The youngest of the Trump siblings remained close to the 74-year-old president and, as recently as June, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Trump family that unsuccessfully sought to stop publication of a tell-all book by the president’s niece, Mary.
Robert Trump had reportedly been hospitalised in the intensive care unit for several days that same month. Both longtime businessmen, Robert and Donald had strikingly different personalities. Donald Trump once described his younger brother as much quieter and easygoing than I am, and “the only guy in my life whom I ever call ‘honey.”
Like his president brother, Robert Trump joined the family business and was a top executive at the Trump Organization.
Robert Trump- 'The Nice Trump'
Robert Trump began his career on Wall Street working in corporate finance but later joined the family business, managing real estate holdings as a top executive in the Trump Organization.
”When he worked in the Trump Organization, he was known as the nice Trump,” Gwenda Blair, a Trump family biographer, told The Associated Press. ”Robert was the one people would try to get to intervene if there was a problem.” Robert Stewart Trump was born in 1948, the youngest of New York City real estate developer Fred Trump’s five children.
The president, two years older than Robert, admittedly bullied his brother in their younger years, even as he praised his loyalty and laid-back demeanor. ”I think it must be hard to have me for a brother but he’s never said anything about it and we’re very close,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1987 bestseller ”The Art of the Deal.”