Donald biz warns prez of Panama
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S business warned another nation’s leader: Help us out of a jam — or else.
Trump Organization lawyers last month asked Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela to intervene in a legal dispute over a former Trump-branded luxury hotel in Panama City.
The March 22 letter “URGENTLY” demands that Varela’s administration intervene in the court matter — and warned that if Varela (photo inset with Trump) didn’t get involved, his government would be blamed in the dispute.
Varela’s government isn’t ready to bend to the Trump Organization’s will.
Panamanian Foreign Secretary Isabel de Saint Malo said the government has no position on the dispute “while the issue is in the judicial process.”
She said the dispute is “an issue clearly of the judicial branch” — in other words, a matter for Panama’s courts, not for its executive branch.
Trump Organization lawyers sought Varela’s help in a feud that booted Trump management from what was once known as the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Club and Tower Panama.
On March 5, a worker used a crowbar and hammer to pry Trump’s name from the hotel’s entrance sign, after a court sided in the dispute with the hotel’s majority owner, Cypriot businessman Orestes Fintiklis.
Fintiklis griped that the Trump brand hurt the hotel’s business by alienating customers.
Though Trump’s name and management are gone from the hotel, the dispute is still winding its way through Panama’s courts.
The Trump Organization’s eviction from the hotel violates an investment treaty between the U.S. and Panama, Trump’s lawyers said in the March 22 letter.
If Varela didn’t intervene, the letter said, damages in the dispute would be attributed “not to the other party (Fintiklis) but to the Panamanian government.”
La Prensa, the Panamanian newspaper that reported the letter on Monday, said that when it asked the U.S. embassy for comment, it was told that “matters related to the Trump organization are remitted directly to the White House.”
La Prensa headlined its story: “Trump Organization pressures Varela.”