Deutsche Bank, which has loaned money to Donald Trump for decades when no one else would, is the latest large company to cut ties with him after Wednesday’s deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol building.
Five people died when a mob of violent Trump supporters busted into the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021 in an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt Congress from certifying the electoral vote count after the elections.
The Frankfurt, Germany-based Deutsche Bank will no longer do business with Trump, a person familiar with the bank’s thinking told the New York Times. It’s one of a growing number of corporations divorcing itself from the president.
Trump’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank has about $340 million in loans outstanding from money borrowed by the Trump Organization, according to banking sources and Trump’s July 31 disclosures with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The organization is the president’s umbrella group for his hundreds of investments in real estate, brands and other businesses. It’s overseen by his two sons, Yahoo News reported.
There are three loans made against Trump properties — a golf course in Miami and hotels in Washington and Chicago — that start coming due in two years. The loans were current on payments and personally guaranteed by the president, bank officials said when Reuters reported on it in November.
Christiana Riley, the head of Deutsche Bank’s U.S. operations, condemned the Jan. 6 violence in Washington, D.C. in a LinkedIn post.
“Violence has no place in our society and the scenes that we witnessed are a shame on the whole nation,” she wrote. “We are proud of our Constitution and stand by those who seek to uphold it to ensure that the will of the people is upheld and a peaceful transition of power takes place.”
Deutsche Bank lent Trump hundreds of millions of dollars even after he sued it for predatory lending practices and fought for forgiveness for his unpaid debt, according to The New York Times.
Now the bank wants to end the relationship and is “tired” of the negative publicity stemming from it, three senior bank officials with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Trump would, in essence, be defunded.
Signature Bank also wants to end the relationship with Trump. It said it was closing his two personal accounts, which held a combined $5.3 million in deposits, the Guardian reported. The New York bank helped finance Trump’s Florida golf course and his daughter Ivanka was on its board. “The resignation of the president … is in the best interests of our nation and the American people,” Signature Bank said on its website.
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Then there’s Twitter and Facebook, which shut down Trump’s social-media feeds, essentially shutting the president up.
Other cancellations include the president being slapped by the Professional Golfers’ Association of America this week when the PGA said it has changed its mind about holding its championship in May at Trump’s New Jersey golf club. The R&A, which operates the British Open and governs golf in most of the world outside the U.S., said it has had no plans to take its men’s major championship back to the course at Trump Turnberry in Scotland.
Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y., said they plan to rescind and revoke honorary degrees given to Trump following the storming of the Capitol, Inside Higher Ed reported.
“Trump’s political power, and his popularity with a large swath of the Republican base, always protected him from a backlash from business and tech leaders — until now. The Capitol siege proved to be the final straw,” Sara Fischer and David Nather reported for Axios.
