Forbes Estimates China Paid Trump At Least $5.4 Million Since He Took Office, Via Mysterious Trump Tower Lease
This is the reason why the damn gop is so insistent that we talk exclusively of Hunter Biden's emails. They desperately do not want us discussing the rank corruption of Trump and Co...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Donald Trump maintained a stake in Trump Tower when he became president, and with it, a financial connection to the Chinese government.
President Donald Trump, who declared "I don't make money from China" in Thursday night's presidential debate, has in fact collected millions of dollars from government-owned entities in China since he took office. Forbes estimates that at least $5.4 million has flowed into the president's business from a lease agreement involving a state-owned bank in Trump Tower.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed a lease for space in 2008, years before the president took office, paying about $1.9 million in annual rent. Trump is well-aware of the deal. "I'll show you the Industrial Bank of China," he told three Forbes journalists touring Trump Tower in 2015. "I have the best tenants in the world in this building."
Trump moved from the skyscraper to the White House in 2017, but he held onto ownership of the retail and office space in the building, through his 100% interest in an entity called Trump Tower Commercial LLC. That put him in an unusual position, given that government-owned entities in China hold at least 70% of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Suddenly, a routine real estate deal became a conduit for a foreign superpower to pay the president of the United States.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China maintained an office space inside President Trump's Fifth Avenue skyscraper.
The arrangement posed legal concerns, since the U.S. Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting "any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state" without Congressional approval. Ethics experts, who have often focused on the president's hotel in Washington, D.C., argued that the president would be in violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause from the moment he took office.
On January 11, 2017, Trump and his team held a press conference inside Trump Tower, not far from the office of the Chinese bank. Trump's lawyer, Sheri Dillon, claimed that routine business transactions are not violations of the so-called Emoluments Clause. But she also said the president planned to donate all foreign government profits at his hotel to the U.S. Treasury. The next month, first son Eric Trump, who had just taken over day-to-day operations of his father's business, told Forbes the donations would come from "all the properties."
Perhaps Eric Trump meant all hotel properties, because it sure doesn't seem like the Trump Organization handed over all their profits from the deal with the Chinese. The Trump Organization reportedly donated a total of $343,000 to the U.S. Treasury in 2017 and 2018, Trump's first two years as president. Yet, a document connected to Trump Tower suggests that over those same two years, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was set to pay about $3.9 million in rent. Operating profit margins inside the building are an estimated 42%, which would suggest that the deal yielded $1.6 million of earnings over those two years. Even if you only count roughly 70% of that money as coming from the Chinese government, it still adds up to $1.2 million—or more than three times what the Trump Organization reportedly gave to the Treasury.
The lease was set to expire on October 31, 2019, according to a debt prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2018, the state-owned bank agreed to a new lease in a different office building nearby, suggesting it might leave Trump Tower. But then, the bank decided to stay in the president's building anyway. "They are keeping a couple of floors," Eric Trump confirmed onstage at a business conference in October 2019.
The new arrangement is somewhat murky. Contacted Friday morning, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization initially said that the bank had "consolidated with their other offices in New York." When told that Forbes might publish that statement, the spokesperson then seemed to confirm that the Chinese bank was in fact maintaining space in the building: "They've exited the vast majority of their space in Trump Tower." The website for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China still lists an address inside Trump Tower.
Trump has other financial connections to China. The New York Times revealed Tuesday that the U.S. president has a bank account in China. His daughter, Ivanka Trump, received 41 Chinese trademarks from the time she was appointed a White House adviser in March 2017 to April 2019, according to an analysis of documents. The review also showed that the trademarks Ivanka applied for after her father's inauguration got approved about 40% faster than those she sought out beforehand.
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Please do note that this is coming from Forbes...
please note"
nice stretch though... could be an olympic record
How whack of you.
This criminal enterprise of an administration is entirely quid pro quo.
I fail to understand your pretzel logic regarding even a hint or impropriety from a Democrat, by way of a family member, while you give Trump and Co a total pass for straight up corruption that would make a tin pot potentate blush...
Please provide evidence that Joe Biden ever accepted any illegal bribe, or else just admit that you are bullshitting us! I will wait...
I don't believe something just because someone says something.
I say let the courts work it out.. and let the chips fall where they may.
if the bidens are clean they have nothing to worry about
where is the laptop to prove it?
They gave it to Guliani
Joe Biden has nothing to worry about except whoopin Trump's lousy behind November 3rd.
Well, we're expected to believe that renting space in his tower is somehow evidence of corruption. A building that has the express purpose of renting space. Trying to put this forth as evidence of corruption seems like pretzel logic to me.
I'm sure joe is worried alright... very worried.
I know trumpturd is worried alright . . . very worried.
at least trump is having fun
joes events look like funerals... LOL
Of course he is, because being the president is a game to him. It is nothing more than a way for him to funnel federal dollars into his bank account, and just see how much he can fuck with and influence the lives of other people. He doesn't actually give a shit about the country or anyone in it, this is just a ego orgasm to him. The only thing he cares about is attention.
like the bidens, obama, the clintons, and bush's did? I would not bet on that.
Yup, it's all about tRump. He's raping, looting, and pillaging the treasury as fast as his fat little fingers will allow, along with his criminal enterprise of an administration and his crime family.
I would think there were something to that if a> the bank hadn't already been renting the space years before Trump became president and b> if there had been any significant increase in rent after he took office. Lastly, if Trump were actually doing something truly wrong, the Dems would have used it as an excuse to impeach him years ago. No way they would have passed that up.
Its starting to look like his relationships with China are almost are corrupt as his relationships with Russia!
Why don't they mention his other undisclosed bank accounts in other countries? One was in Scotland I believe. I cannot recall the other one.
If Trump is re-elected he wins.
If Trump loses------------there will be a new Attorney General, Director at Treasury and the FED. In other words, there will be new rules.
Trump is dirty. He knows it. Barr knows it. The GOP knows it. If Trump loses on Nov. 3rd his 'trump cards' expire totally in 78 days.
Unfortunately, when Trump loses, his first step will be to try and issue blanket pardons to himself and all his cronies.
If he cannot issue one to himself, he will resign and have POTUS Pence issue him one.
In other words, Trump is a crybaby, needing special favors and to much of a wimp to play in the 'big boy games'.
You really think the Trump would call on Pence to be his final 'cuckold'?
Gerald Ford did it for Nixon, so why not?
Man, I would take THAT bet in a heartbeat!
If he doesn't, a 6 month vacation from here for you, and if he does, I will take a 6 month one.
You game?
I would be except that I don't believe you would stand by your side. You'd simply re-register under a different name, again. So the answer is a NO.
Except Nixon nor Ford were 'cuckolds'.
So, in other, TRUER words, you aren't game, despite your claim.
I figured that would be one of the responses I got.
Thanks for never disappointing.
And do you think that any Trump supporter will ever go back and rerun the tape of Trump praising China on the Coronavirus? Will any Trump supporter care that Ivanka got all those Chinese trademarks. Rerun the tape of how Trump has praised China on a number of things. How about the "tariffs" that only hurt Americans who pay higher prices which is a windfall for China and the rubes fall for the con every time.