ETHICS/SOUTH KOREA/TRUMP BUSINESS: “While visiting South Korea over the weekend, President Donald Trump tried to strike a deal with President Moon Jae-in to get more companies to invest in the United States. But even as he pushed American interests, a partner of Trump’s namesake company is aggressively expanding plans to build luxury Trump-branded resorts in Indonesia — and the project involves a construction company partly owned by the South Korean government. It’s not clear whether Trump brought up the Indonesia projects during his talks with Moon. But the meeting represented the latest example of the blurred lines between Trump’s official diplomatic work and his business interests. The expansion of the project that now has the South Korean government attached to it seems to run afoul — at least in spirit — of Trump’s pledge that the Trump Organization will not enter into any new foreign deals while in office. The project in question got more complicated, ethics-wise, when the developer of a Trump luxury resort signed a previously unreported $120 million contract last September with a construction company — partly owned by the South Korean government — to build a six-star hotel, an 18-hole golf course and theme park that has been compared to Disney World.”
–Anita Kumar, “Trump’s foreign luxury resorts collide with his South Korea diplomacy,” Politico, July 1, 2019 4:31 pm