TRUMP FOOTPRINT
In visits dating back to 1987, president expressed interest in Moscow projects
in Russia light as businessman.
MOSCOW — Donald Trump has his name on hotels, resorts and other properties from South Korea to Turkey to Panama, but none in Russia, though he repeatedly said he wanted to build a Trump tower in Moscow and discussed various deals in a few visits dating back to 1987.
He’s traveled to the country, though, visiting imperial palaces and construction sites, presiding at a Miss Universe pageant, and mingling with city officials at gala functions.
Since beginning his campaign, he has spoken glowingly of Moscow and President Vladimir Putin. Now that Trump is in the White House, his relationship with Russia is under increased scrutiny, especially since U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Kremlin meddled in the 2016 election in his favor. And critics speculate that Trump may let potential business interests in Russia influence his foreign policy.
Although Trump is said to have shown broad interest in a deal with Russia that would include cooperation in fighting the Islamic State militant group in Syria and would address Russia’s interference in Ukraine, his administration has signaled that now may not be the time for such deals.
Investing in the post-Soviet real estate market was a high-risk gamble, with many businessmen put off by the uncertainties of the legal system amid an atmosphere of organized crime.
It appears Trump made only one deal, and it wasn’t in real estate: While a co-owner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant, he signed an agreement with billionaire Aras Agalarov to hold the event in Moscow in November 2013. Agalarov told the Russian edition of Forbes that his company spent about $20 million on the pageant.
Real estate did come up, however, while Trump was in Russia for the pageant.
“He was thinking of building the Trump tower in Moscow,” Agalarov said in an interview. “We offered him our site … and showed him how it all looked on the map. He was considering this, but it didn’t come to signing any deals.”
White House spokesman Hope Hicks and Trump Organization spokesman Amanda Miller did not answer questions about why he had decided not to do business in Russia. They said in separate emails that the president has never had anything to do with Russia.
The issue of Trump’s connections to Russia has dominated his fledgling presidency and ensnared top officials, including Michael Flynn, who resigned as national security adviser last month after misleading officials about the content of his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the transition between presidents.
Now, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has withdrawn from any investigation that touches on Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials. Sessions is facing calls to resign after he failed to disclose his own meetings with the envoy.
Trump’s first visit to the country took place in 1987 when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reform program was in full swing, although private property was still outlawed.
In November 1996, Trump made his second visit. He spent three days looking for a site for a “super-luxury residential tower, which I think Moscow desperately wants and needs,” he told The Moscow Times.
Trump’s representative told reporters that he and Moscow’s deputy mayor held very preliminary discussions on investing in two of the city’s famous but troubled hotels. One of them was the Mosvka, next to Red Square, which would need renovations costing about $200 million, according to business newspaper Kommersant.
Alexander Khomenko, an assistant to the deputy mayor, told the newspaper in 1997 that Trump said he did not have enough money to renovate the property.
When Trump returned to Russia in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant, he was hosted by Agalarov, the Azerbaijan-born billionaire with whom he had forged a close friendship.
Agalarov offered a detailed itinerary of Trump’s Nov. 7-9 visit to Moscow, which appeared to be an attempt to show that his American friend had no time for the activities described in a dossier compiled by a former British spy that was published in January.
The dossier contained unproven information alleging close coordination between Trump’s inner circle and the Russian hacking of Democratic email accounts, as well as unsubstantiated claims about sexual activities by Trump in Moscow attributed to anonymous sources.
The Associated Press has not authenticated any of the claims, which Trump has dismissed as “fake news” and “phony stuff.”
On Nov. 9, 2013, the final day of the pageant, Trump was Agalarov’s guest at an after-party and unveiled his star on a “walk of fame” after midnight before heading for the airport.
When he arrived home, Trump tweeted: “I just got back from Russia-learned lots & lots. Moscow is a very interesting and amazing place! U.S. MUST BE VERY SMART AND VERY STRATEGIC.”