Donald Trump has said all along that if he were elected president, he would step aside and let his kids run the business.
"If I become president, I couldn't care less about my company. It's peanuts," Trump said at the first GOP debate in January.
But in its investigation of the Trump Organization and its extensive foreign dealings, Newsweek found that unless President Trump — and his entire family — severed all connections to the business, "almost every foreign policy decision he makes will raise serious conflicts of interest and ethical quagmires" that would "constantly jeopardize the security of the United States."
A Trump Administration could not co-exist with the Trump Organization.
"Trump's business conflicts with America’s national security interests cannot be resolved so long as he or any member of his family maintains a financial interest in the Trump Organization during a Trump administration, or even if they leave open the possibility of returning to the company later," Newsweek reported.
Trump's many businesses pose unprecedented ethical issues.
Newsweek's report showed Trump with "financial conflicts" in much of the Islamic World, including Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries that is an ally of the U.S.
In 2008, Trump struck a deal with a company owned by a then-politically influential family in Turkey that has since fallen out of favor, and whose owner is facing 20-plus years in prison for a smuggling scheme, Newsweek reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who met Trump, now wants Trump's name removed from the Istanbul complex over the candidate's anti-Muslim rhetoric, according to Newsweek.
"Trump would be in direct financial and political conflict with Turkey from the moment he was sworn into office," Newsweek reported. "When faced with the prospect of losing the millions of dollars that flow into the Trump Organization each year from that Istanbul property, what position would President Trump take on the important issues involving Turkish-American relations, including that country's role in the fight against ISIS?"
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