President Trump is very proud of his golf resort in Miami, and so we will take his word that he legitimately believes it is the best place in America to host the G-7 conference next year.
It doesn’t matter. Even assuming that he has pure motives, it’s still wrong for a president to use his official powers to steer millions of dollars in international business into his own pockets.
Power rightly comes with constraints. While thousands of businesses profit from dealing with the federal government, the president’s businesses shouldn’t be among them. Put another way: Being president should disqualify you from doing personal business with the government you run.
We hope Trump acknowledges this, and takes his properties off the list of potential locations for the G-7 summit.
There will be lawsuits if Trump goes forward with his plan to host the 2020 G-7 conference at Trump National Doral in Miami. Litigants will cite the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, because this would involve the governments of Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. forking over massive amounts of money to a company Trump owns.
We don’t put much stock in those lawsuits. That constitutional provision bars gifts from foreign potentates, not doing business with foreign potentates.
But the mere fact that something is constitutionally permissible doesn’t make it ethically acceptable.
Already, Trump has made untold profits from businesses, domestic and foreign, who seek favor with the federal government and pay big bucks to stay at his properties in D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. Even if the Trump administration hasn’t delivered a single quo for all this quid, it corrupts diplomacy and business-government relations to dangle out the possibility that enriching the president might win you federal favors.
That is why this page has argued for more than two years that Trump should divest. There are too many ways for corruption or the appearance of corruption to creep into the current arrangement. We don’t want Trump being too flattered by a courtier lavishing praise and dollars on Trump’s hotels. We don’t want some regulator afraid to enforce the rules against a Trump hotel. We don’t want any business owner, CEO, or foreign officials believing Trump owes him anything in return for massive spending at a Trump property, or for having done favors for a foreign Trump property.
The case of the G-7 may be different. It’s actually even more likely that the French and Canadian governments will resent being forced, in effect, to pay Trump money. It is not a good thing to needlessly irritate our allies.
But even if Trump is unpersuaded by these arguments, he should at least worry about the appearances. If the president is getting richer off of government actions, what message does that send ordinary Americans about the nature of capitalism and our government?
It makes it appear that our economy and government are rigged. A sitting Republican president should want to avoid that appearance. Instead, Trump should show leadership and put his own resorts at the back of the line.
