Throughout this election, pundits and critics have speculated about Donald Trump’s motivations for refusing to release his tax returns. On countless occasions, the G.O.P. nominee has asserted that an ongoing I.R.S. audit of his finances is preventing him from making his filings public, despite the fact that there is no law that prohibits their release during an audit. (His returns from the years 2002 to 2008 are reportedly no longer under review, either.) Many have hypothesized that the billionaire’s tax returns might reveal questionable financial partnerships associated with his sprawling business interests.
With few legal documents available for reporters to examine, the Trump Organization, which is the primary source of the Republican’s billion-dollar fortune, has remained largely shrouded in mystery. But according to a Newsweek investigation by Vanity Fair contributor Kurt Eichenwald, the Trump family concern is a minefield of potential conflicts of interest, which would create a web of convoluted—and potentially intractable—contractual ties between a President Trump and numerous foreign governments.
While Trump has promised that, if elected president, he would leave the Trump Organization in the control of his adult children, it would be impossible for him not to know about his company’s myriad past and ongoing business relationships. Unless he dissolves his company entirely—something Trump has said he will not do—the Republican would find himself constantly having to decide between what is best for his family’s bottom line and what is best for the United States, in his dealings with dozens of countries around the world.
South Korea
In April, Trump argued that South Korea and Japan should acquire their own nuclear weapons, taking some of the pressure off the United States to defend them. That policy, should it go into effect, would benefit the Trump Organization, Newsweek reports. In the 1990s, the Trump Organization entered into a business deal with Daewoo Engineering and Construction, wherein it paid for the right to use the Trump name for six condominium properties in Seoul and two other cities, Newsweek reports. But the South Korean firm also has an active role in nuclear fuel enrichment and energy generation in the country, and would likely benefit from a renewed nuclear-weapons program. Daewoo Engineering and Construction’s parent company, the Daewoo Group, later fell into bankruptcy, prompting revisions of its contract with the Trump Organization, but the two entities remain tied.
India
The Trump Organization has been involved in a handful of development deals in India, leading to close ties with several political parties and powerful individuals in the country, Newsweek reports. One such connection is allegedly to Madhukar Tulsi, the head of real-estate company Ireo, who in 2010 was investigated for suspected ties to Sudhanshu Mittal. Mittal, then the leader of the country’s second-largest political party, was suspected of being involved in a scheme to funnel money earned from India’s hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games—a sort of mini-Olympics for the former British Empire—through tax havens and into Ireo development projects, Newsweek reports.
Charges were not brought in the case against either Tulsi or Mittal (the latter denied any involvement in the alleged Commonwealth Games scandal), but the investigation highlights how a President Trump could easily find himself entangled in foreign politics. The Trump Organization reportedly has several other major real-estate projects planned in India; at least one, a licensing deal with Panchshil Realty to build two 22-story towers in Pune, has run into trouble with local authorities over a land dispute. A Trump administration could easily make the ongoing investigation go away.
Turkey
In 2008, the Trump Organization entered into a business deal with the Dogan Group. Aydin Dogan, the head of the organization, was reportedly indicted by an Istanbul court on charges of fuel smuggling. Newsweek reports that the charges brought against Dogan prompted his family to fall out of favor with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in June condemned Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and called for the New York real-estate mogul’s name to be removed from a complex in Istanbul, built by the Dogan group. (Dogan Holding has called the fuel-smuggling allegations “baseless” and “slander.”) Add Turkey to the list of countries with which Trump would enter office already engaged in a personal feud.
Azerbaijan
The Trump Organization is working with Garant Holding, a local developer controlled by Anar Mammadov, on a real-estate project in the oil-rich capital city of Baku. While the development is reportedly on hold, the project would create a potentially problematic tie between the a Trump administration and Mammadov’s father, Azerbaijan transportation minister Ziya Mammadov, whom Newsweek reports is suspected by U.S. diplomats of having laundered money for Iran. (No charges have been brought against Anar or Ziya Mammadov.)
Libya
Beginning in 2008, Trump reportedly attempted to forge a business relationship with Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, and allegedly sought investments from the Libyan Investment Authority. One year later, Trump offered to rent Qaddafi his estate in Westchester County, New York. Qaddafi, however, ultimately did not stay at Trump’s property after the town of Bedford forbade the North African dictator’s stay. But the incident raised troubling questions about Trump’s business judgment in attempting to forge ties with a man suspected of ordering the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988, including 11 on the ground.
