Beijing-basher Trump keeps China account
washington — 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 governmentcontrolled company, The
New York Times reported.
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 Organisation, 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. —
washington — Donald Trump spent years cultivating business projects in China, where he maintained a previously unknown bank account, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, as the US president attempts to portray election rival Joe Biden as weaker on Beijing.
Trump has spent recent days promoting a murky claim that Biden’s son Hunter sold access to his father in Ukraine and China when he was vice president under Barack Obama.
It is Trump, however, who maintained an office in China during his first run for president, and partnered with a major government-controlled company, the Times reported.
Trump additionally keeps a previously unknown bank account in China, controlled by Trump International Hotels Management, according to an analysis of his tax records by the paper. It is one of only three foreign nations — including Britain and Ireland — in which he does so.
The tax records show the company “paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015,” the Times reported. Trump Organisation lawyer Alan Garten said the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes.”
“No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialised and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” he told the Times. “Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”
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.
Under his “America First” banner, Trump has portrayed China as the greatest threat to the United States and global democracy. He has launched a massive trade war that has cost China billions of dollars, harangued Chinese tech firms and laid blame for the coronavirus pandemic with Beijing.
Even so, in 2008 Trump attempted an ultimately unsuccessful office tower project in Guangzhou, and in 2012 he opened
No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialised and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive, Alan Garten
Trump organisation lawyer
a Shanghai office, the Times said. Additionally, Trump Hotel Collection (THC) negotiated with the State Grid Corporation of China — an electricity company, and the country’s largest state-owned enterprise — to brand and manage a major development in Beijing, sources said. But the bid was later abandoned. —