NEW YORK (AP) — 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 make deals with private foreign companies.
The so-called ethics white paper bans the Trump Organization from making deals directly with foreign governments, but does allow deals with private companies abroad. A six-page ethics pact that Trump signed eight years ago banned deals with both foreign governments and foreign companies.
The Trump Company also announced it is hiring an outside ethics consultant to investigate deals, as it did during the first term.
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“The Trump Organization is committed to not only meeting but exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father’s presidency,” said Executive Vice President Eric Trump.
The Trump Organization recently struck deals for hotels and golf resorts in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, raising concerns among ethics experts and government watchdogs that President-elect Trump’s personal financial interests are influencing policies of those countries.
The family-owned company has shown interest in making deals in Israel and elsewhere, and has financial interests in two companies with publicly traded shares that could get a boost from foreign investors. That includes Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, and a new cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
“The scale of corruption will be orders of magnitude greater than what we saw during the first Trump administration,” said ethics attorney Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. People trying to curry Trump’s favor now have an easy way to do so, she said, by taking advantage of “massive cash inflows through ‘investments’ in Trump’s crypto and real estate ventures.”
The Trump Organization announced it would hire William A. Burck, a managing partner of Quinn Emanuel LLP, to investigate deals that could pose conflicts of interest with public policy. The company conducted a similar vetting process during Trump’s first term.
Under U.S. law, federal government officials are barred from having financial interests in companies that could influence their views on the public policies they help shape, and are often forced to sell their interests. US presidents have been excluded from the ethics ban after Watergate, but all presidents have voluntarily agreed to follow the law except 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.
During his first term, Trump early in his presidency promised to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, but instead tried to openly deal with his properties. He once tried to hold a G-7 meeting of world leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Florida. He had to abandon the idea after outrage from critics.
His Trump hotel in Washington DC was also a major source of concern for ethics watchdogs during his first term. The Trump International Hotel down the street from the White House quickly became a gathering place for lobbyists, both domestic and foreign, and foreign diplomats.
Several groups accused Trump of violating the Constitution’s “emoluments” ban on gifts and payments to the president, citing the hotel in particular. The hotel has since been sold and the Supreme Court declined to rule on an emoluments violation after Trump left office, saying the issue was moot.
Now the emoluments clause could become another legal headache for Trump, given his company’s sprawling operations, including its two new publicly traded companies.
His financial stake in one of them, Trump Media, is worth billions.
Critics worry that people seeking to curry favor with the president, including foreign officials, could buy stock in the company, further increasing its price along with its paper wealth.
Another new Trump family business, World Liberty Financial, a platform used to trade cryptocurrencies, is also controversial.
During his first term, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrency, tweeting in 2019: “Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trafficking and other illegal activities.”
He has since reversed that stance, pledging to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” at a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year. He has appointed two cryptocurrency champions to join his administration: Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has warned that cryptocurrencies are volatile investments with few safeguards to protect investors from manipulation and fraud, and has cracked down on some companies. It is not clear whether the agency will continue to closely monitor the sector under the new administration. Trump’s nominee to lead the SEC, Paul Atkins, is a proponent of cryptocurrencies.
Eric Trump, the son most involved in running the Trump Organization, has expressed frustration that the company had become a lightning rod for critics of conflicts of interest during his father’s first presidential term, despite the voluntary ethics ban of the company on certain deals. He has said he wants a freer hand in running the company this time around.
The Trump Organization has recently made deals abroad, including one announced in October to put the Trump name on a planned $1.5 billion luxury golf resort with hotels and a residential community in Vietnam.
The memorandum of understanding, which was struck with a Vietnamese developer linked to the ruling Communist Party, comes at a particularly vulnerable time for Vietnam, with Trump promising to raise tariffs on many countries. Vietnam is heavily dependent on exports to the US and has a large US trade surplus, making it a ripe target for Trump’s threat to punish countries he believes are guilty of unfair trade 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, which are at various stages of development.
