Trump¡¯s company isn¡¯t banning private foreign deals, unlike during his first term
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NEW YORK ¡ª The Trump family business released a voluntary ethics agreement Friday that marks a significant departure from Donald Trump¡¯s first term by allowing it to strike deals with private foreign companies.
The so-called ethics white paper bars the Trump Organization from striking deals directly with foreign governments, but allows ones with private companies abroad. An ethics pact that Trump signed eight years ago barred deals with both foreign governments and foreign companies.
The Trump company also announced it was hiring an outside ethics advisor to vet deals as it did in the first term.
¡°The Trump Organization is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father¡¯s Presidency,¡± Executive Vice President Eric Trump, the president-elect¡¯s son, said in a statement.
The Trump Organization recently struck deals for hotels and golf resorts in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, raising concerns by government ethics experts that the president-elect¡¯s personal financial interests could influence policy toward those countries.
The family company has expressed interest in striking deals in Israel and elsewhere, and has financial interests in two businesses with publicly traded stock that could get a boost from foreign investors. That includes Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of social media platform Truth Social, and a new cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
Trump said he would isolate his family businesses, but they have already seeped into the White House
Twenty-four hours before taking the oath of office, President Trump strutted into the presidential ballroom of the Trump International Hotel to toast congressional leaders, top donors and the people he had picked to fill out his Cabinet.
¡°The scale of corruption will be orders of magnitude greater than what we saw in the first Trump administration,¡± said government ethics lawyer Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. People trying to win Trump¡¯s favor now have an easy way to do so, she said, by using ¡°massive influxes of cash through ¡®investments¡¯ in Trump crypto and real estate ventures.¡±
The Trump Organization announced that it was hiring William A. Burck, a managing partner of Quinn Emanuel LLP, to vet deals that could pose conflicts with public policy.
As in the last ethics agreement, the five-page white paper prohibits Trump from ¡°day-to-day¡± decision making at the Trump Organization, limits financial information about the business shared with him and commits the company to donate to the U.S. Treasury profits from foreign government spending at its properties.
Under U.S. law, federal government officials are not permitted to hold financial interests in businesses that could sway their opinion on public policy they help shape, and are often forced to sell off their stakes. U.S. presidents are excluded from the post-Watergate ethics ban, but all presidents have voluntarily agreed to follow the law, except for Trump.
The first billionaire president would have had to sell more than a dozen golf courses around the world, office and residential towers in Las Vegas, Chicago and New York and several resorts, including Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump¡¯s D.C. hotel within a month of Trump¡¯s election in 2016 ¡ª paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by the Washington Post.
At the outset of his first term, Trump pledged to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, but he ended up openly courting business to his properties. He once tried to hold a Group of 7 meeting of global leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Fla. He had to abandon the idea after outcry from critics.
His Trump hotel in Washington was also a major source of concern for ethics watchdogs in his first term. The Trump International Hotel down the street from the White House quickly became a gathering spot for lobbyists, both domestic and foreign, as well as foreign diplomats.
Numerous groups accused Trump of violating the Constitution¡¯s emoluments ban on gifts and payment to the president, citing the hotel in particular. The hotel has since been sold and the Supreme Court refused to rule on an alleged emoluments violation after Trump had left office, citing that the issue was moot.
The emoluments clause could become a legal headache for Trump again given his company¡¯s sprawling businesses, including the two new publicly traded ventures.
His financial stake in one of them, Trump Media, is worth billions of dollars.
Critics worry that people who want to curry favor with the president, including foreign officials, could buy stock in the company, pushing the price up further along with his paper wealth.
Another new Trump family venture, World Liberty Financial, a platform used to trade cryptocurrencies, is also controversial.
In his first term in office, Trump said he was ¡°not a fan¡± of cryptocurrency and tweeted in 2019, ¡°Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.¡±
He has since reversed that position. At a bitcoin conference in Nashville last year, he promised to make the U.S. the ¡°crypto capital of the planet.¡± He has tapped two cryptocurrency champions to join his administration: Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick and Treasury secretary nominee, Scott Bessent.
Trump promised ¡®all hell will break out¡¯ in the Middle East if Israeli hostages are not returned by the time he takes office.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has warned that cryptocurrencies are volatile investments with few safeguards to protect investors from manipulation and fraud, and cracked down on some firms. It¡¯s not clear if the agency¡¯s close scrutiny of the industry will continue in the new administration. Trump¡¯s nominee to head the SEC, Paul Atkins, is an advocate for cryptocurrencies.
Eric Trump, the son most heavily involved in running the Trump Organization, has expressed frustration over criticisms about conflicts of interest during his father¡¯s first presidential term, citing the company¡¯s voluntary ethics ban on certain deals. He has said he wants fewer restraints in running the business this time.
In the Vietnam deal in October, the Trump Organization joined with a Vietnamese developer with ties to the ruling Communist Party for a $1.5-billion luxury golf resort, raising questions about whether this might influence U.S. policy.
The deal comes at an especially vulnerable time for Vietnam as Trump vows to raise tariffs on many countries. Vietnam has a large U.S. trade surplus that makes it a ripe target for Trump¡¯s threat to punish countries that he says are engaging in unfair trading practices.
The Trump Organization also has buildings bearing the Trump name in India, Turkey and several other countries. It owns two golf courses in Scotland and one in Ireland and has plans for resorts in other countries, including Oman and Indonesia, that are in various stages of development.
Condon writes for the Associated Press.
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