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The US president spent a decade trying to invest in China, where he ran an office in the first presidential race, creating a partnership with a company controlled by the Chinese government, the New York Times reported.
Donald Trump’s tax returns, which the US newspaper had access to, showed that the then candidate tried through an office to ensure the viability of business projects in China, one of the three countries where he has a bank account.
Foreign accounts are not included in Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list his assets, as he is owned by companies.
In the article, published online on Tuesday, it is stressed that Trump and his allies tried to characterize the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, as weak with China, justifying this position with his son’s business in the Asian country, one of the ‘flags ‘of the current president in the political struggle he has with the former vice president of the United States.
Senate Republicans drew up a report stating, among other things, that Biden’s son, (…) ‘opened a bank account’ with a Chinese businessman, where he would go through part of what they claimed to be the countless connections with ‘foreign citizens and foreign governments around the world,’ “he said.
The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management LLC and tax returns show that it paid $ 188,561 (153,500 euros) in taxes in China while seeking to secure licensing deals from 2013 to 2015, it added.
Tax records do not include details of how much money may have been spent on foreign accounts, although the Internal Revenue Service, an agency that handles the revenues of the United States Federal Government and is part of the Treasury Department, requires information on the income of others. countries.
The New York Times noted that “British and Irish accounts are maintained by companies operating Trump golf courses” in Scotland and Ireland, which regularly account for millions of dollars in revenue from these countries, but that Trump International Hotels management recorded only a few thousand China dollars.
To the newspaper, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten explained that the company “opened an account at a Chinese bank with offices in the United States to pay local taxes” associated with efforts to do business in China. And added that the company opened the account after establishing an office in China “to explore the business potential of hotels in Asia.”
“No business, transaction or other commercial activity has materialized and, since 2015, the office has been inactive,” Garten said, to conclude: “Although the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”
Garten did not identify the bank in China where the account is open. Until last year, the largest state bank in China rented three floors in the Trump Tower, which led to accusations of conflict of interest directed at the current president, the US newspaper recalled.
