TRUMP BUSINESSES’ PROFITS UP SINCE HE BECAME PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON— Becoming president forced Donald Trump to resign from a slew of corporate positions, but it also appears to have netted him much more income from his Mar-a-Lago resort and from book sales.
According to a financial disclosure form released late on Friday, Trump earned around $37 million this year from the Florida resort—a $7 million increase from last year.
Since becoming president on Jan. 20, Trump has travelled to the Palm Beach property often and upped the membership fees substantially.
He has frequently referred to the property as the “Winter White House” and sought to promote the venue as an official presidential residence.
Trump’s trips to Florida bring with them a retinue of secret service agents and government staff, who are reported to stay there at US taxpayers’ expense.
Not detailed
The disclosure was made in forms released by the Office of Government Ethics. They are less detailed than full tax returns, which Trump has refused to release, breaking with decades of tradition.
The 98-page document showed that being president has also apparently increased Trump’s earnings from sales of his book “The Art of the Deal” published in 1987 and that he resigned from positions in 565 companies on or around the day before becoming president.
His assets range from Pfizer stocks to a drinks company in Israel, but the disclosure also showed hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
When he took office in January, Trump turned over the reins of his global real estate, property management and marketing empire to his two adult sons and a senior executive.
But Trump did not divest, instead placing his enormous portfolio of financial assets in a trust controlled by the executive and Donald Trump Jr. He can take back control of the trust at any time, and he’s free to withdraw cash from it as he pleases.
No impact
On paper, at least, the billionaire president’s finances don’t appear to have been upended by the campaign and transition to power.
He has at least $1.4 billion in assets and reported at least $594 million in income from January 2016 through this spring. Those top-line numbers were largely the same as he had reported in his previous filing, which included all of 2015 and part of 2016.
Trump’s financial disclosures have added importance because he isn’t following the long tradition of presidential candidates and office-holders making public their tax returns.
Those returns provided more precise financial information than the disclosure forms.
Some of Trump’s ventures appear to be making more money than they had a year earlier.
‘Art of the deal’
His book “The Art of the Deal” is having a comeback of its own. Royalties from the 1987 autobiography ranged between $100,000 and $1 million, according to the new report. The 2016 report listed royalties as being between $50,000 and $100,000 and the 2015 report put them at $15,000 to $50,000.
Trump’s management fees from Indonesian companies tied to two planned resorts there more than doubled. The latest disclosure puts the fees $380,000 up from $167,000 he reported in 2016. Trump is partnering with a billionaire Indonesian, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, on the two ventures. One is planned for the tourist island of Bali, the other near Jakarta.