Because presidents remain exempt from conflict-of-interest statutes, the blind trust is essentially ceremonial -- a tradition but not a requirement. Nevertheless, it's been a tradition recent presidents have followed. Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife put their Texas radio holdings in a blind trust. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, both of the Bushes and Bill Clinton did the same with their assets. Barack Obama, who mostly owns mutual funds and Treasury notes, has opted to skip a blind trust since, his argument goes, there’s little he can do to influence the performance of his relatively basic portfolio.
But Donald Trump would represent something entirely new in the White House. He would arrive comfortably wealthy, as others have before him (a number of the Founding Fathers were land-rich, while Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were scions of wealthy families. On an inflation-adjusted basis, George Washington and JFK may have been the wealthiest presidents ever.
Unlike those men, however, Trump has been a hard-driving businessman his entire adult life and he’s been actively involved in a grab bag of enterprises -- a portion of which appear to be global. (Disclosure: I wrote a Trump biography, “TrumpNation,” for which Trump sued me in 2006 because, among other things, it questioned the size of his fortune. The suit was later dismissed.)
In addition to operations in China and the Middle East, Trump's campaign disclosures show companies that appear to run licensing, hotel, golf and other businesses in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Philippines, South Africa and Turkey.
Federal conflict-of-interest laws would still prohibit Trump from using his presidential powers to the advantage of his businesses or the financial interests of other family members, but it would be hard to conceive of any major global trade deal that wouldn't raise a red flag given Trump's international presence. Other geopolitical and national security policies could also intersect with Trump's overseas enterprises. His domestic real estate businesses would be affected by shifts in interest rates and tax policies, and he owes at least several hundred million dollars to banks that his administration would regulate.
Here's another area that's ripe for confusion and potential conflicts of interest: Trump has said that three of his children -- Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric -- would run the Trump Organization if he's in the Oval Office. But that trio -- ages 38, 34 and 32, respectively -- hardly represents a disinterested managerial corps. It would be reasonable to assume that they would probably be in close contact with their father about the family's multiple business and political affairs. (The Office of Government Ethics forbids family members from overseeing blind trusts for members of the executive branch.)
Trump presents an added complication. He has said for years that he believes that a large part of his fortune is tied up in the value of his brand, which he has never been shy about promoting. Recall that it was only a few months ago that Trump turned a news conference following three of his primary and caucus victories into an infomercial in which he touted the virtues of Trump Water, Trump Wine and Trump Steaks (Trump's steak business is actually defunct and he was displaying another company's product). So it's worth pondering whether Trump might turn the White House into his own version of Wal-Mart.