Closer look at Trump dealings before presidency
NEW YORK — Weeks before his inauguration, Donald Trump was allied with a company in the former Soviet republic of Georgia that planned to build a 47-story luxury tower in the Black Sea resort of Batumi.
The tower, nixed in early January, was to bear Trump’s name — in exchange for which he would receive royalties, as he does from similar arrangements around the world.
But the company, Silk Road Group, had business ties and relationships that could have been problematic for a sitting U.S. president. Over the years it had oil trading and transport deals with companies in both Russia and Iran, countries currently facing varying degrees of U.S. and European financial sanctions.
It was also a strategic fuel supplier to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and had partnered with a Kazakh bank whose former leader is accused of stealing billions and laundering some of it through luxury real estate in the United States, including Trump-branded condos.
None of this is revealed in Trump’s financial disclosure statements. And since he hasn’t released his tax returns, these sorts of relationships are not apparent.
The Trump Organization’s push into Georgia and the broader region called Eurasia offers a made-to-order example of how little is publicly known about its foreign commitments, both past and present, and the sometimes conflicted activities of overseas associates.
A McClatchy investigation reveals that Trump ventured more aggressively into the former Soviet empire from 2005 to 2015 than has previously been known, even seeking to have his name atop a massive shimmering glass tower in Astana, the post-Soviet capital of Kazakhstan.
And Trump sought a trademark in Iran, a country he has sought to isolate as pres- ident, that would reserve use of his name among other things for real estate and hotels.
Trump now makes policy decisions with the potential to affect the Trump Organization and its associates in any number of ways, and the questions multiply. Deals that may not have been problematic for a celebrity developer look far different when he is also the U.S. commander in chief, with his sons still running the family-named business.
Trump’s businesses are spread well beyond U.S. borders. McClatchy estimates that at least 159 of the 565 companies Trump listed in his most recent disclosure report, released June 16, were tied to business abroad.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in U.S. elections and possible obstruction of justice by Trump may delve into the Trump business empire as it examines suspicious financial activity by Russian operatives.
Trump denies having business in Russia, but has benefited from Russian investors in Trump-branded projects and Russian buyers in his luxury hotels and residences.
McClatchy’s investigation reveals how Trump sought a foothold not just in Russia but across the former Soviet empire. Not known before, the Trump Organization in 2012 negotiated with then-Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov for an obelisk-shaped tower to be built near the presidential palace, designed by architect John Fotiadis, who also did the Batumi project and lists offices in New York and the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Trump Diamond lost out to a rival project in Astana for the tallest building in Central Asia, the 75-story Abu Dhabi Plaza.