Trump execs ousted from Panama hotel

PANAMA CITY — Workers removed the Trump name from signs outside a luxury hotel in Panama on Monday, as executives of President Donald Trump’s family company were ousted under orders from Panamanian officials from their offices in a business dispute. Trump’s security guards also left.

The end to a 12-day standoff over control of the property came early in the day when a Panamanian judicial official and police officers backed the hotel’s majority owner, Orestes Fintiklis, as he took possession of the offices. The Trump-affiliated management and security officials then left the 70-story, waterfront high-rise.

“This was purely a commercial dispute that just spun out of control,” said Fintiklis, a Miami-based private equity investor and head of the hotel owners’ association. “And today this dispute has been settled by the authorities and the judges of this country.”

The episode was a rare occasion when a foreign government has stood up against the operations of one of Trump’s family businesses, and it was unclear whether Trump might consider retaliating diplomatically.

The Panamanian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. government officials referred questions to the Trump Organization, which did not respond to phone messages and emails requesting comment.

The judicial intervention resolved the most contentious part of the dispute between Trump’s hotel business and Fintiklis, who sought to take physical control of the property on behalf of the hotel owners. Though the owners tried to fire Trump’s company last year, the Trump Organization had disputed the termination as legally invalid.