The Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause says no federal officeholder shall, “without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Trump kept ownership of his businesses as president and handed day-to-day control to his sons. [1][2]
House Oversight Democrats, using records from his accounting firm, documented at least $7.8 million in payments from 20 foreign governments to four Trump properties during his first term, with China the largest. They called them unconstitutional emoluments; that is their legal conclusion, not a court’s. [3]
Lawsuits under the emoluments clauses never got a final ruling on the merits. In January 2021, after he left office, the Supreme Court sent the District of Columbia and Maryland case back with instructions to dismiss it as moot. [4]
For his second term, the Trump Organization’s ethics plan bars deals with foreign governments but allows deals with private foreign companies, a looser rule than in his first term. [5]
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