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By AFP 
1 hour ago
By Delphine Touitou and John Biers
WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump rose to prominence with a business empire named after him, but after four years of political turmoil capped by the violent attack by his supporters on Capitol Hill, the mark of the president of the United States is tarnished and threatened their businesses, experts say.
Businesses that stuck with Trump during his tenure are cutting ties in an 11-hour stampede, including Signature Bank, which shut down Trump’s personal accounts, and the PGA of America, which outlined a plan to celebrate its 2022 championship in the field of Trump golf in New Jersey.
Such announcements reflect not only the nervousness of the business community over proximity to a widely condemned figure, but also a narrow margin at his company, which has already been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and impending loss of taxpayer revenue. Americans linked to Trump’s visits.
The president’s role in the Capitol calamity that killed five people and sparked international shock has drawn withering criticism from various groups ranging from the Business Roundtable to the AFL-CIO labor federation.
The “Trump name is really an albatross,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of a 2015 Trump biography, adding that January 6 was a game changer for the president’s brand.
“He is the most disgraced president in history. This is a person who is synonymous with a mob attacking the United States Capitol,” he said. “I think this went too far.”
Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, said Trump’s brand will suffer long-term damage from the chaos.
“Before his tenure, Trump represented wealth, success and extraordinary luxury,” he said. “Now the brand has associations with anti-government views, racism and extremism. This makes the brand quite toxic.”
Mixed bag
Recent reports in the US media, including The Washington Post, have recorded low occupancy at Trump properties in Washington and Chicago as the United States grapples with the Covid-19 crisis.
Additionally, Trump owes about $ 400 million to Deutsche Bank, which is also reportedly planning to halt business with Trump after the Capitol siege.
Trump’s company did not respond to written questions from AFP.
The president has dismissed the business challenges, stating at a televised event on October 15 that the $ 400 million is “a small percentage of my net worth.”
Assessing the status of Trump’s finances is difficult due to the opaque nature of government disclosure information and the private status of the Trump Organization.
However, winning the presidency has certainly cost the company some business, such as when the Trump Organization pulled out of a luxury hotel in Soho, New York, where the president is unpopular.
The overall impact of the Trump presidency on his business is really hard to estimate, said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
His sons, Don Jr and Eric, who now run the Trump Organization, had launched a pair of new hotel chains, Scion and American Idea, aimed at the “red states” that are home to much of Trump’s base.
But the brothers took the company offline in 2019, citing obstacles they blamed on political opponents.
New directions?
Despite these setbacks, Trump’s properties have enjoyed a reliable stream of taxpayer income, courtesy of the president’s regular stays at his clubs and golf courses, where he is joined by White House staff, family and the secret service.
CREW estimates that Trump properties earned more than $ 100 million from more than 500 visits by the president, according to a September report.
The document criticized Trump for about 3,400 conflicts of interest linked to hotel stays of foreign governments or lobbyists and fundraising events of other politicians, such as Representative Jim Jordan, who defended Trump during the week’s impeachment debate. pass.
Bookbinder said the president should have completely divested his business at the beginning of his term. Instead, he used his presidency to promote him, while his sons became vocal champions of his presidency, effectively “fusing” Trump’s political and business endeavors.
That decision could limit the brand’s ability to attract consumers outside of its political base.
“What you have now is a smaller but extremely devoted cult,” Bookbinder said.
D’Antonio believes Trump is likely to step away from his legacy businesses and become “a kind of television and political evangelist,” perhaps creating his own television network and charging fans to watch it.
In such a scenario, Trump could sell current assets to pay off his debt to Deutsche Bank, which, according to D’Antonio, could mean that “there may be no Trump towers or Trump hotels or Trump golf courses within 10 years.”
French Media Agency
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