Ledger · First term · № 98
"No new foreign deals" and foreign profits donated to the Treasury
Broken“[paraphrase] I will sign no new foreign deals while in office — I turned down a $2 billion Dubai golf deal — and the Trump Organization will donate all profits from foreign government payments to the U.S. Treasury.”
- Promised
- , Trump Tower press conference, nine days before the inauguration, with a stack of folders presented as divestment documents
- Re-promised
- 3 times with a fresh deadline
- Topic
- Ethics & conflicts
- Era
- First term
What happened
Trump never divested; he moved assets into a revocable trust he could draw from and his sons ran the company. Ethics experts noted the foreign-profits pledge excluded resorts and let Trump define "profit" himself, and that he already had two existing Dubai golf deals with the same developer. When the Trump Organization said in 2018 it had donated foreign profits, it refused to disclose the amount or any country-by-country breakdown; House Oversight Democrats demanded proof and got none.
Sources
- Trump promised to donate profits from foreign governments to the Treasury. House Democrats want proof
- After A Year In Office, Questions About Trump's Foreign Deals Go On. And On
- Trump Organization says it has donated foreign profits to Treasury
- Oversight Committee Requests Documents on Trump Organization's Treatment of Foreign Government Payments