WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Saturday that the 2020 G7 summit will not be held at his Doral resort in Miami amid concerns of a conflict of interest.
“Based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020,” Trump said in a tweet.
“We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately,” he added as he praised his “big, grand” property and its location “next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.”
On Thursday, the White House announced that the golf resort would host the summit, claiming it was “far and away the best physical facility for this event.”
As he announced the decision, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters that the president would not profit from the event “in any way, shape or form.”
Mulvaney also claimed that when the U.S. last hosted the then-G8 summit at Camp David, a presidential retreat outside Washington, in 2012, the folks who participated in it hated it and thought it was a miserable place to have the G7,” saying it was “way too small” and “way too remote.”
Trump echoed Mulvaney in a series of three tweets, saying that “I would be willing to (host the summit) at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA,” before blasting “the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners” for the backlash.
An impeachment inquiry currently under way in the U.S. House of Representatives includes whether Trump is illegally making money off his presidency in violation of the U.S, Constitution, which forbids a president from profiting from foreign governments or receiving money from the U.S. government except a salary.
Trump has faced criticism for not fully separating himself from his worldwide real estate company after taking office. The president still owns the business but has placed his holdings in a trust.
The host of the annual G7 summit, which brings together the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S, rotates among its members, and in 2020 it is Washington’s turn to host.
Russia became part of the club in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, making it the G8, however Moscow was expelled after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Mulvaney said that as host the U.S. will have the prerogative to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the event, which will run from June 10 to 12.
