CHICAGO—Commercial real estate executives have been trying to take the measure of Donald Trump ever since he landed in the White House. At the beginning of this year, one of the worries was the possible wholesale tearing up of trade agreements that buoy a lot of the infrastructure that facilitates imports. Most of those fears have not come to pass. However, a whole new set of concerns, mostly about instability, both foreign and domestic, but also about tweets, have arisen, and industry leaders keep trying to gauge how the new administration will impact their ability to do business.

Therefore, it's perhaps no surprise that much of yesterday's discussion during a lunchtime panel at DLA Piper's 14th Global Real Estate Summit revolved around President Trump. The global law firm brought in former US Secretary of Commerce Penny S. Pritzker, former Democratic US Senator and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, and former Republican US Senator and Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, to hash out the latest news and try to make sense of it all. And some of the signs are troubling.

“We still don't have a full government in place,” said Pritzker. Many US embassies don't have ambassadors, for example, even in key nations, and this could soon harm American efforts to do overseas business. In addition, the president has not fully staffed many federal agencies and Cabinet-level departments, a situation that will create uncertainty. She attributed some of the foot-dragging to the incoming administration's sheer surprise at being handed the reins of power. “They didn't expect to win. But here we are in the fall, and things should be further along from a management standpoint.”