Americans were asked to believe on Wednesday that an inveterate deal-maker and hands-on business kibbitzer is going to avoid picking up a phone at some point during the next four years and asking his sons how business is going.

"Trust, but verify," said President Ronald Reagan in another context. President-elect Donald Trump is ignoring the subordinate clause in his plan to wall himself off from his business interests. Americans also are expected to believe that governments and people trying to curry favor with the Trump administration won't throw some business at the Trump Organization, and if they do, they'll be blocked by an ethics officer who reports only to Trump executives.

On Wednesday, Trump announced at a press conference that he was turning over his real estate empire to a trust run by his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, and a company executive. The president-elect will retain his ownership stake (and sees nothing wrong with that).

How might this work? Well, Trump proudly announced that over the weekend, he was offered a $2 billion deal from Dubai developer Hussain Sajwani. "I turned it down," he boasted. "I didn't have to do that."

If Sajwani was listening carefully, he now knows to run the deal through Don Jr. and Eric, who of course won't tell dad anything about it.

The stage at Trump Tower included a table stacked high with documents purported to be agreements distancing Trump from the hundreds of entities within the Trump organization. Lawyer Sheri Dillon, who helped write those agreements, argued that it was unrealistic to expect Trump to sell his holdings or place them in a blind trust.

"President-elect Trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built," she said. "This plan offers a suitable alternative to address the concerns of the American people."

It is not a suitable alternative. It is an honor system set up to preserve a business built not by honor, but on bluster and other people's money.

"Tragically, the Trump plan to deal with his business conflicts announced today falls short in every respect," said Norm Eisen, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Mr. Trump's ill-advised course will precipitate scandal and corruption."

Trump claimed a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card that exempts him from conflict of interest statutes. "So I could actually run my business and run government at the same time," he said.

Because almost any executive action could be construed as a conflict of interest, Congress in 1978 exempted the president and vice president from conflict of interest laws. Most recent presidents have gone the extra mile and placed their corporate assets in blind trusts.

But there's never been a president as wealthy as Trump, nor one with so many potential conflicts. Nor one as seemingly disinterested in the special obligations of his office.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST LOUIS POST DISPATCH