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Trump’s canceled contracts overseas total just $323K
President-elect plans to discuss his divestment plan Wednesday
The overseas contracts the Trump Organization is withdrawing from account for just $323,150 in revenue for the $3 billion company.
The licensing agreements for buildings in Argentina, Azerbaijan, Brazil and Georgia brought President-elect Donald Trump unwanted attention, but were also mired in difficulties, Bloomberg reported.
The planned Trump [TRDataCustom] hotel in Rio de Janeiro came under scrutiny of a criminal probe and a separate office property never got off the ground. Trump’s business partner in Azerbaijan has ties to that country’s government.
A tower planned in Buenos Aires lacked the required permits and a condominium building in Batumi, Georgia had been stalled since 2012.
The cancelled deals could have produced more revenue in the future because payments were “backloaded towards project completion,” according to Trump’s personal financial disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission in May.
Still, the moves have done little to silence critics who say Trump has not done nearly enough to distance himself from his business holdings to avoid conflicts of interest.
“There are such deep-seated conflicts of interest built into this that it takes your breath away,” said political scientist Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy group in Washington. “This is barely lip service to the notion that you’re doing something about it.”
Trump’s licensing deals brought in as much as $2.59 million in 2014 and the first half of 2015. The large bulk came from the Azerbaijan deal.
He is expected to outline his plan Wednesday for divesting himself of his business interests. [Bloomberg] – Rich Bockmann