THE DONALD’S BUSINESS TIES

The Associated Press takes a look at US President-elect Donald Trump’s global business empire

Donald Trump says his business is “great,” and you’ll have to trust him on that.

One of the few things an outsider can know for sure is that it’s a complex and opaque hodgepodge of an empire scattered around the globe.

Trump has interests in 500 companies in about 20 countries. But many of them have no business operations and are just shells set up to hold stakes in other companies, possibly to provide legal and tax protection.

The details matter because government ethics experts note the possibility that Trump might be tempted to shape regulations, taxes and foreign policy to enrich himself or his business partners. Foreign governments could create plenty of trouble, too.

Trump has said he will separate from his business, but has provided few details on what that means. He is scheduled to discuss his plans at a news conference on Wednesday.

Trump has his name on hotels, residential towers and resorts around the globe, from South Korea and the Philippines in Asia to Uruguay in South America and Turkey in the Middle East.

In Indonesia, he struck a deal for use of his name and management services for a resort and residential building in Bali owed by the MNC Group, a real estate company run by a politically active businessman, Hary Tanoesoedibjo. In his May disclosure, Trump said he made between $1 million and $5 million in licensing fees for this deal in the prior 17 months, as well as for similar deals in Turkey, Panama, the Philippines and India.

His partner in the Philippines venture, E.B. Antonio, was recently named a “special envoy” to the US by his country’s president. Trump faced criticism after India’s Economic Times reported that he held a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan shortly after the election with business partners in one of two Indian ventures, two residential towers in Pune in the western part of the country.

Trump’s tax returns might shed more light on his businesses abroad, but he didn’t release them during the campaign, breaking decades of precedent. As president, he is not required to publish public financial disclosures until his second year in office.

Much of Trump’s wealth is in just four buildings, according to Forbes magazine, which has been tracking his holdings for 33 years. Three of them are in Manhattan — a wholly-owned office building on Wall Street and stakes in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and an office tower nearby in midtown — and one is in San Francisco.

Forbes’ estimate for the four buildings, after subtracting out debt on them owed by Trump: $1.5 billion, or 40 percent of the president-elect’s $3.7 billion total net worth.

Trump also has investments in a Chicago hotel and one in Las Vegas and, of course, the new Trump International Hotel in Washington DC. In the case of the latter, he doesn’t own the building, but rents it from the federal government.

Trump has been busy adding to his portfolio of golf properties in recent years, and here he has been risking his own money by taking ownership stakes. It’s a bold bet. The golf business in general is suffering as club memberships have fallen.

The Trump Organization has 17 golf courses in total. They include three in Florida, as well as links in California, New Jersey and New York. In 2014, Trump completed deals for Ireland’s Doonbeg golf club and Scotland’s Turnberry resort, the site of several British Opens. He has also struck deals to open two clubs in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

In his May disclosure, Trump reported $306 million in revenue from his courses, more than a third of that from the one in Doral, Florida.

You can wear Trump suits and ties, cufflinks and eyeglasses. You can dab yourself with “Success by Trump” cologne.

You can drink Trump Natural Spring Water or Trump wine. You can do that in a Trump chair, next to your Trump sofa and sideboard, while reading “Crippled America,” one of his many books.

Trump reported that the books alone generated between $1 million and $5 million in income over the 17 months prior to the May disclosure.