On Oct. 7, 1885, a 16-year-old boy from Kallstadt, a small wine-growing village in what was then Bavaria, boarded ship in Bremen, bound for New York. Like his future grandson, Friedrich Drumpf was doing what it took to avoid military service. Striking out for the West Coast, the man now calling himself Frederick Trump earned a small fortune in hooch, whoring and hotels before returning to his native land to take a wife. He resumed his innkeeping back in New York shortly thereafter, but his wife was not taken in by the charms of der Große Apfel, and they moved back to Germany. Unfortunately for the couple and the world, the erstwhile Drump’s draft-dodging had not gone unnoticed, and Fred and the pregnant Elizabeth were chased out of the country and back to this one.
That, however, was not the end of the relationship between the family Trump and the German nation. For the child carried by Elizabeth back across the Atlantic was the future Fred Trump, and when the heir to his empire of outer borough slums sought to expand the Manhattan holdings he’d so flamboyantly built up after taking the reins from dear old dad, he turned to the old country for financing, specifically to Deutsche Bank.
More than 20 years and more than $2 billion later, Deutsche Bank is calling a halt to the ties that bind the Trumps to their ancestral homeland. Apparently, having helped finance one coup is enough for any global bank.
Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump’s primary lender for two decades, has decided not to do business with Mr. Trump or his company in the future, according to a person familiar with the bank’s thinking. Mr. Trump currently owes Deutsche Bank more than $300 million, which is due in the next few years.
The bank has concluded that, short of forgiving the debt, it has no way to extricate itself from the Trump relationship before the loans come due.
The financial farewells hit a bit closer to home, albeit several orders of magnitude less significantly, as well.
Another longtime financial partner of the Trumps, Signature Bank, also is cutting ties. The bank — which helped Mr. Trump finance his Florida golf course and where Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, was once a board member — issued a statement calling on Mr. Trump to resign as president “in the best interests of our nation and the American people.”
Susan Turkell, a spokeswoman for the bank, said Signature had decided that it “will not do business in the future with any members of Congress who voted to disregard the Electoral College.” Ms. Turkell said that in the wake of the riots the bank began closing Mr. Trump’s two personal accounts, which had about $5.3 million.
He told you so, Forbes.
An Urgent Reckoning for the Trump Brand [NYT]
Earlier: If Deutsche Bank Could Vote, It Would Vote For Non-Client Joe Biden; Trump Banker Makes Like Bill Barr And Retires; Deutsche Bank Makes One Last Deal With Donald Trump
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