The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is the largest bank in the world. Its majority owner is the Communist government of China. ICBC’s New York address is 725 5th Avenue — also known as Trump Tower.
In two months, that means, the president of the United States will be pocketing rent checks from a state-run megabank owned by the United States’ largest military and economic rival.
This is a plain conflict of interest. Trump’s personal finances may not depend on it, but they will hinged to continued good relations with, and the economic success of, ICBC. You don’t need to posit the most corrupt circumstance — such as the Chinese regime currying favor or extorting policies from Trump through payment or withholding of payment — to imagine circumstances where his personal financial interests will clash with the national interest.
For instance, the U.S. is currently pushing Asian nations to dismantle and shrink their state-owned enterprises. If Trump pushes China too hard to close its largest state-owned bank, he will actually be antagonizing a tenant.
ICBC has also been the foreign counterparty in U.S. subsidy deals. For instance, the bank’s aircraft leasing arm buys American-made jets with the help of U.S.-taxpayer financing via the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. These subsidy deals are supposed to serve the interests of American businesses. But would Trump have an attachment to one particular foreign buyer or lender if it were his business partner?
With a little imagination, you could foresee a thousand potential conflicts springing from his arrangement with ICBC. Then recall that Trump has hundreds of similar connections with hundreds of domestic and foreign companies.
“Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!'” one Asian diplomat told the Washington Post this week. “Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor’?”
We know Trump is not beyond mixing his business with his politics. President-elect Trump met during his transition-planning last week with Sagar and Atul Chordia, who head Panchshil Realty, developer of Trump Towers south of Mumbai. The men reportedly discussed Indian politics and Trump’s business opportunities there. When Trump met with British politicians, including Brexit champion Nigel Farage, he pressed Farage to oppose offshore windmills abutting Trump’s Scottish golf course.
Trump also has businesses in unstable and strategically crucial countries such as Turkey.
This may be an unavoidable result when someone with huge active business interests gets elected. That doesn’t mean it isn’t still a huge mess.
Voters ought to worry about any politician whose business interests intersect and perhaps clash so much with his public duties. Americans are all in a partnership with Trump now, and he will soon act as our agent. Plenty of folks have come out of a partnership with Trump worse for the experience — just ask his creditors, his vendors, his beauty queens, his ex-wives or Chris Christie — while Trump has profited.
Without even positing bad intentions on Trump’s part, we need to worry about the subconscious pull for him to consider his business interests when he should be focusing solely on the national interest.
With Trump, there’s another reason to worry: He judges other people and determines how to treat them based on how they treat him. When asked to assess various public figures, Trump consistently uses this measure: I like him, he treated me well in a business deal. I dislike her, she lost me money.
So if a foreign leader wants to curry favor with the President could he pull it off by cutting a good deal with some Trump business? Forget about a bribe or a quid pro quo, President Trump may just say, That Erdogan has a bad rap, but I know he’s a good guy because he treated my hotel well.
Trump’s business ventures are a minefield of conflicts and temptations. Handing them to his children fixes nothing. First, we know his children will have his ear on matters of state and politics, and have even sat or listened in on his first conversations with foreign leaders. Second, Trump will always know that his company will be there waiting for him when leaves the White House.
Donald Trump needs to liquidate his assets and put the proceeds in an actual blind trust. He almost certainly doesn’t want to do this, and that’s why congressional Republicans should make him do it.
Even if Trump never does anything improper, and even if his actions end up impoverishing his company, the constant conflicts will create constant headaches. Democrats in Congress and the mainstream media have pledged themselves to making Trump’s four years difficult. He would, at the very least give endless ammunition to his dedicated opponents by keeping his global business ventures so close to himself.
Donald Trump has to decide whether he’s really trying to Make America Great Again, or is he — once again — just in it for himself.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
