After unprecedented riots in the U.S. Congress, the business community began to avoid contact with current President Trump.
According to U.S. media reports, within four days, many companies have severed business ties with Trump’s companies.
Online payment processor Stripe said that it would no longer process credit card payments for his campaign, cross-border e-commerce Shopify announced the removal of Trump-related online stores, and the PGA announced that the 2022 championship would no longer use “Trump National Golf Club” Music Department”.
At the same time, Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank, which are closely linked to Trump’s loan business, also decided to distance themselves from Trump.
January 11th local time, a spokesman for Signature Bank said that the bank would close two Trump’s personal accounts with an amount of about $5.3 million.
Deutsche Bank, which has borrowed more than $300 million for Trump, also decided not to do further business with Trump and his company.
Songs on all sides
According to US media reports, Trump’s brands have faced considerable financial challenges.
According to the latest financial disclosure report, Trump has owned a number of international golf courses and resorts over the past 20 years, which now account for about one-third of the company’s revenue.
But many of these golf and resort properties have been losing money, and the epidemic has caused occupancy rates to drop sharply, such as P.G.A. held in May 2022. The tournament was re-sited, another blow to the already slugger golf course business.
Analysts and people familiar with Trump said that the impact of last week’s congressional violence on some of Trump’s properties will be particularly severe.
According to U.S. media reports, the most important of these is the Trump Hotel in the former post office building in Washington, D.C. For the past four years, businesses and foreign governments that want to please the Trump administration have booked rooms or events in the hotel.
A person familiar with the matter also said that some members of Trump Golf Club are reassessing whether to retain membership due to possible protests and sabotage.
It is not clear which bank would be willing to lend money to the Trump Group. Deutsche Bank has loaned more than $300 million to Trump’s companies in the past decade.
But criminal investigators in New York State investigating Trump’s business practices have summoned people who have loan relationships with Trump.
According to US media reports, at the end of last month, several bankers from Deutsche Bank, which cooperated most closely with Trump, resigned.
Several large companies announced that they would stop political funding.
Not only Trump was affected, but also some American business giants quickly stopped campaign donations to some Republicans who opposed the election results certification process, and some companies suspended political fundraising completely.
The first organizations to withdraw political fundraising for some Republicans included Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Care Organization, Marriott International and Dow Chemical Company.
Goldman Sachs Group, Airbnb, American Express, General Electric, Mastercard, Communications companies Verizon and AT&T, retail group Best Buy and Comcast, a telecommunications service provider, followed quickly.
Hallmark, which operates in the fields of greeting cards, stationery and computer software, even asked two opposing Republican senators to return their previous funds.
In addition, Blackstone, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, credit card brands VISA, JPMorgan Chase, Duke Energy, Edison International, technology giant Microsoft and Facebook have suspended all donation activities.
U.S. media said that political action committee (PAC) donations are an important source of funding for incumbents in both parties, especially for Republican candidates in recent years.
In the 2020 election, Republican candidates and committees received $205 million in PAC campaign contributions from businesses, while Democratic candidates received $155 million from corporate PACs, according to campaign finance data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Response to Politics (CRP).
In the 2020 election, funding from corporate PACs helped Republicans cover the deficit in campaign contributions from other sources.
“We have never seen such a thing,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of CRP.
Corporate PACs usually maintain good relations with different positions to hedge different campaign results.
She said that there has never been an incident that forced American companies to respond on such a large scale.
