Whether or not Hunter Biden broke any laws his business arrangements in Ukraine were overtly sleazy.

This is an unavoidable truth, especially when they are taken in context as part of a pattern of odd and lucrative foreign business dealings. This includes a bank deal in China that his father Joe Biden, the former vice president, directly enabled by ferrying his son on Air Force Two on an official diplomatic trip to the Orient.

Even if President Trump quite evidently abused his office by pressuring Ukraine to re-open an investigation into the Bidens, that doesn’t mean the Bidens, especially Hunter, can be excused for their unethical behavior.

Most of this involves matters of nonformal ethics, meaning unwritten norms of behavior that most people recognize even in the absence of written strictures. That which is not technically illegal can still be very wrong.

Here, the appearance that Hunter Biden cashed in on his father’s name and government position, and in ways that could compromise the reputation of American foreign policy, is so strong as to cross well beyond the line at which the appearance of impropriety becomes inherently improper, no matter the details. The damage to the public weal lies in the harm done to American credibility by the suspicion that its foreign policy is driven by private profit motive.

Other damages are less obvious but still real: Any time somebody is hired for his assumed influence rather than for real qualifications, the economic and political systems affected are all compromised by the misallocation of resources and by thumbs placed on economic and perhaps judicial scales.

Of course a family member of a high official has every right to earn a living, only it has to be an honest living. One unwritten rule of ethics and logic should be to avoid having close relatives go into new foreign business dealings where they have no personal knowledge or expertise whatsoever. This is especially true when American policy toward those nations is under the direct purview of the high official in question. It’s overwhelmingly true when the profiting family member possesses no unique or obvious experience or skill set making him a “fit” for the job at hand.

All of which is lengthy but necessary predicate for assessing Hunter Biden’s deals.

Biden accepted a lucrative board position with an energy company focusing on Ukrainian business, even though, based on every account I’ve seen, he had no background or expertise in energy or in Ukraine. He did so after the energy company was known to be under Ukrainian investigation for alleged corruption and after his father was publicly overseeing much of the Obama administration’s policy toward Ukraine. It also all happened after Hunter Biden’s business partner met with Joe Biden in the White House — the same business partner who also joined the energy company’s board on, yes, the very day after the vice president’s visit in Kiev began.

In the vernacular sense (not necessarily in criminal-legal terminology), this is a textbook case of influence-peddling. And it harmed U.S. interests: What otherwise would have been seen as entirely legitimate and even wise insistence by Joe Biden that Ukraine fire a corrupt prosecutor now starts looking like a tawdry deal to protect Biden’s son. Even if the elder Biden’s motives were innocent, the son’s profiteering hurts the credibility of the U.S. government, making it less likely for American motives to be seen in the future as clean and just.

The business in China, although less famous at this point, was even worse. On what possible policy grounds would Joe Biden bring his adult son to China on Air Force Two, immediately after which the younger Biden emerged with an almost unprecedented $1.5 billion Chinese deal for his small investment fund?

Both of these situations smell awful. Both of them call into question at least the ethics of Biden the son, and the judgment of Biden pere. Legal or not, both situations are shameful. Both deserve more scrutiny, and both suggest that Joe Biden should not be president of the United States.