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Without needing to be pressured to do so, president-elect Donald Trump is resolving any potential business conflicts of interest that would arise from his position as president. As he’s told us during his campaign, the operations of the Trump Organization (in which he owns a 100 percent stake) will be run by his children, and he sold all individual stocks he owns back in June, before he’d even won the election.
Now he’s just closed four companies that have ties to a nation we wouldn’t even be allied with if it weren’t for their oil reserves: Saudi Arabia. According to the Daily Mail; Corporate registrations in Delaware show that President-elect Donald Trump shut down some of his companies in the days after the election, including four companies that appeared connected to a possible Saudi Arabia business venture.
News of the move comes days before Trump was expected to describe changes he is making to his businesses to avoid potential conflicts of interest as the U.S. president.
The Trump Organization’s general counsel, Alan Garten, told The Associated Press that the business currently has no deals in Saudi Arabia. Garten said he did not know why those companies were set up or whether they involved a previously planned business venture. He said the closure of corporate entities was routine.
As of now, it’s unclear whether or not these were operating companies (extremely unlikely), or these were simply LLCs created in advance of potentially doing business in the Kingdom.
Meanwhile, if Hillary Clinton were the president-elect, you can be sure the Saudis would be cutting her a check right now. [Note: This post was authored by The Analytical Economist]
