Horatio Parker
Veteran Member
Donald Trump's longtime business connections in Turkey back in the spotlight
Trump and his family have long had business ties in and with Turkey, the most visible example being the Trump Towers Istanbul, which licenses the Trump name. The Trump Organization describes the buildings on its website as “a landmark in the historic city of Istanbul” and it is the organization’s first and only office and residential tower in Europe, with offices, apartments and upscale shops. The Washington Post has reported that the organization was paid up to $10 million to put the Trump name on the two buildings.
Erdogan attended the opening ceremony of the office and residential towers in 2012 and Ivanka Trump tweeted a message thanking him for attending, although a photo of Erdogan at the ribbon cutting has been removed from his Facebook page.
According to a review of Trump family social media posts, Ivanka Trump made business trips to Turkey in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
In 2015, Trump acknowledged having a potential “conflict” when it came to issues involving Turkey.
“I have a little conflict of interest because I have a major, major building in Istanbul,” Trump said in 2015. “It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers — two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two,” Trump said in an interview with Stephen Bannon, then chairman of Breitbart News.