Trump’s Indonesian business projects move forward: report

President-elect Donald Trump plans to move forward with business ventures in Indonesia, which pose questions of conflicts of interests as he prepares to take office. 

The New York Times reported Saturday that Trump’s organization still has “binding contracts” for two large resort projects in Indonesia. One project will become the biggest resort in Bali and will look over a Hindu temple.

The Times reported the company will be moving forward developing the properties. 

None of the construction work has begun yet, the Times notes, but Trump has relationships with powerful people in Indonesia who the paper described as “crucial to pushing through big projects.”

{mosads}Trump vowed he would make “no new deals” during his presidency and said his two adult sons would take over his businesses when he becomes president. But the fact he has such deals pending creates more questions about the potential for conflicts of interest between his presidential duties and his businesses. 

The Times reported that one of Trump’s partners on the project, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, is a billionaire media mogul who ran for vice president of Indonesia in 2014 and is gearing up for a political run in 2019.

“You could have two world leaders that are business partners. It makes it almost impossible to conduct diplomacy in an evenhanded manner. That does not work,” Richard W. Painter, a White House ethics lawyer under fromer President George W. Bush, told the Times.