Trump does not own most of the properties with his name on them.

[kentuck]

He gets paid for leasing out his name.

Why should it be so difficult to divest from those properties?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Presumably he'd have to get out of the licensing agreements.

The owners of the various properties are paying Trump for the use of his name. Terminating the licensing agreements would mean those buildings would have to take the name "Trump" down and stop using it in any way. And then the property owners would no longer be paying the Trump organization for the use of the name. It's a whole lot more complicated than putting owned properties in a blind trust. Of course, if I was one of those owners I might not want Trump's name on my building any more.

[HoneyBadger]

2. He probably has a contract that pays him a recurring amount of money and other forms of value

For instance, maybe on a golf condo he gets $4m a year, 2 condos to rent and the use of the grounds for a week during some big event. If by divest, you mean walk away with nothing, that would be easy, walk away with full value for the 40 year lease, he might love that, somewhere in between is the sweet spot. Each of these deals probably took a team of a dozen bankers a year to put together and they did not put in any verbiage about divesting.

[unblock]

3. actually that sounds to me harder.

if he owns a building, he can sell it.
if he owns a share of a partnership that owns something, he can sell his share.

i think there it's at least possible, though toxic trump might have some very adverse tax consequences. in theory, being required to sell is a bad negotiating position and would get a lousy price, but in toxic trump's case, i'd expect people would be happy to make sure he got a bri--, er, profit.

but if he's licensed his name for someone else's building, seems to me the best he can do it not renew when the contract is up.

so if the real building owner has licensed toxic trump's name and still has 7 years on a 10-year contract, there might not even be a way out. hell, it might well be a 99-year contract. maybe he could buy himself out of that contract, but the building owner could demand a fortune or just plain say no.

[unblock]

4. the real problem here is that the full extent of the problems wasn't properly covered in the media

they let toxic trump get away with saying it wasn't a problem, then saying he'd put it in a blind trust.
there was a bit of an issue when he said his kids would run it all, but nothing near what was appropriate.

if it were a hillary had even a fraction of such entanglements, they'd be saying "disqualified" every other sentence, and explaining in gory detail how every presidential decision would be tainted.

i mean, think of the crap she got for giving a speech at an investment bank, or for running a charity that saves many lives.

[Rollo]

5. simple, really...

If The Donald finds it so difficult to divest himself of potential conflicts of interest, there's always Plan B: refuse to take the Oath of Office.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. From what I remember reading, he lost more and more equity every time he filed BK.

[stevenleser]

7. In Panama they threw his management company out of the Trump hotel there.

See what ensued: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3303204/Fired-Panama-condo-owners-Trump-demands-75-million.html

[kentuck]

8. So now, he's in 3501 lawsuits?

That's all he knows.