President Donald Trump and his lawyers promised in January to voluntarily give away the hotel profits as part of an ethics agreement. | AP Photo Trump Organization: First Treasury donation on hotel stays to come in 2018 The voluntary payments are aimed at avoiding constitutional questions

The Trump Organization will wait until 2018 to make its first annual donation to the U.S. Treasury on any profits it earns from foreign government officials who stay at one of President Donald Trump’s luxury hotels, a company official said Friday.

Trump and his lawyers promised in January to voluntarily give away the hotel profits as part of an ethics agreement aimed at avoiding a constitutional prohibition on receiving payments from foreign governments.


But until Friday, they hadn’t provided details of how the arrangement would work. In a statement to POLITICO, Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller said the company “has developed and is implementing its policy to identify profits from foreign government patronage at our hotels and similar businesses.”

The Trump Organization, she added, would follow hospitality industry standards on accounting and financial reporting to come up with a total dollar figure for the donation.

“The concept of profit is well understood in the hospitality industry, as are the pertinent accounting rules, for the Trump Organization to comply with the president’s voluntary directive,” she said, adding that the donations will come on an annual basis after the end of each calendar year.

Trump while serving as president has maintained ownership of his company, which includes hotels, real estate, golf courses and the licensing of his name, though the day-to-day management now is handled by his adult sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and several longtime Trump Organization executives. Because of that arrangement, Trump’s critics say he needs to give a foreign government’s entire payment to the Treasury, not just the profits, and there are already a pair of lawsuits taking aim at the setup in federal district court.

The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claims in its lawsuit that Trump is already in violation of the Constitution because foreign companies are renting space in his buildings and lending money to his real estate ventures. In the other lawsuit, a New York attorney in a class-action case wants the court to establish an official system to make the Trump Organization follow through with its promise to donate all foreign government profits to the U.S. Treasury.

Both cases remain in preliminary stages, with Trump’s lawyers expected to file motions later in the spring to dismiss the lawsuits.