Tax Records Show Trump Tried to Land China Projects
Category: News & Politics
Via: buzz-of-the-orient • 4 years ago • 21 commentsBy: No Author Indicated
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Tax Records Show Trump Tried to Land China Projects
China continues to be an issue in the 2020 presidential campaign, from the president’s trade war to his barbs over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic
In this Oct. 5, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump gestures as he returns to the White House in Washington, after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland.
President Donald Trump spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Trump maintains a bank account, according to a Times analysis of the president’s tax records. The foreign accounts do not show up on Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names.
The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management LLC, which the tax records show paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.
In response to questions from The Times, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes” associated with efforts to do business there. He said the company had opened the account after establishing an office in China “to explore the potential for hotel deals in Asia.”
“No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” Garten said. “Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”
Garten would not identify the bank in China where the account is held.
China continues to be an issue in the 2020 presidential campaign, from the president’s trade war to his barbs over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. His campaign has tried to portray former Vice President Joe Biden as misreading the dangers posed by China’s growing power. Trump has also sought to tar his opponent with overblown or unsubstantiated assertions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings there while his father was in office.
As for the former vice president, his public financial disclosures, along with the income tax returns he voluntarily released, show no income or business dealings of his own in China. However, there is ample evidence of Trump’s efforts to do business there.
As with Russia, where he explored hotel and tower projects in Moscow without success, Trump has long sought a licensing deal in China. His efforts go at least as far back as 2006, when he filed trademark applications in Hong Kong and the mainland. Many Chinese government approvals came after he became president.
In 2008, Trump pursued an office tower project in Guangzhou that never got off the ground. But his efforts accelerated in 2012 with the opening of a Shanghai office, and tax records show that one of Trump’s China-related companies, THC China Development LLC, claimed $84,000 in deductions that year for travel costs, legal fees and office expenses.
The Times said Trump's tax records show that he has invested at least $192,000 in five small companies created specifically to pursue projects in China over the years. Those companies claimed at least $97,400 in business expenses since 2010, including some minor payments for taxes and accounting fees as recently as 2018, the Times reported.
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I'm just sort of wondering, since he did not seem to be successful in landing any projects in China, if his attacks on China are really vengeful paybacks for not getting the government's help in making his projects successful. But if he had to pay tax in China, then he must have made some profits there - hard for me to understand.
He manufactured a lot of his crap in China, didn't he? Like his stoopid maga hats.
His tie line was also out of China.....
I wouldn't be surprised if his China tariffs were initiated because of personal vengeance in not getting a deal he wanted. I fits with his character (if you can call it that...),
I thought his tie line was done in China! Thanks for that info.
His character is somewhere between a snake's belly and the earth it slithers across
And his daughter was magically awarded many fast tracked trademarks just after Trump became President.
"China grants 18 trademarks in 2 months to Trump, daughter" - 2018
"China grants Ivanka Trump 5 trademarks amid trade talks" 2019
"The Chinese government has granted Ivanka Trump’s company preliminary approval for another five trademarks this month, as her father’s administration pushes ahead on trade negotiations with China ."
You probably wont get too many comments Buzz. The Trumpsters are all hyperventilating about the alleged Hunter Biden story.
Actually, there are quite a few - some last gasps, and a lot of valid comments contradicting them. Most of the Trumpsters must be going into hiding.
How long has Donald Trump had a political career? Not quite the same length of time in politics as Joe Biden. Trump's business dealings in China aren't the same as Biden's business dealings.
The fuck they're not because he didn't let go of any his business dealings when he became president.
Well that's true to a large extent. Donald Trump owns and sells tangible business properties and goods. And those tangible business properties and goods provide revenue, income, and wealth.
The only thing Joe Biden owns and sells is political influence. But political influence is an integral part of a political career, as Biden has demonstrated. Biden's political influence provides revenue, income, and wealth. Too bad career politicians can't be forced to divest themselves from what they sell.
Donald Trump buys and sells tangible things. Joe Biden sells himself; sort of like a political prostitute.
Speaking of political prostitutes - the 'president'
I just can't believe some of the bullshit that comes out of tRump supporters' mouths. . . .
He sells trash
Yep. A lot of it was made in China.
So why does he manufacture so much of it in China if he hates China so much?
I am waiting for the news that trumpy bears were used to transport drugs.
LOL!
Licensing his name is tangible?
Thank-you. I knew that wasn't sitting right with me for a reason
Amazes me when people that tout being capitalists are selective on who can or should be.
One person making money (a private individual) mostly from books sales and speaking engagements is bad, yet another person making money (in the highest office in the land, when they are suppose to be divested) Is good and tangible...
They have no dignity, no conscience.
It only takes a few seconds to sell out your country for personal gain.
“ Trump then , stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win ,” Bolton wrote. The president “stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome .”
“I would print Trump’s exact words, but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise,” Bolton added.
"I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike" "The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son"
"China grants 18 trademarks in 2 months to Trump, daughter" - 2018
"China grants Ivanka Trump 5 trademarks amid trade talks" 2019
"The Chinese government has granted Ivanka Trump’s company preliminary approval for another five trademarks this month, as her father’s administration pushes ahead on trade negotiations with China ."