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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 government-controlled company, The New York Times reported on Tuesday (May 20). October).
China is one of only three foreign nations, the others being Great Britain and Ireland, where Trump maintains a bank account, according to a Times analysis of the president’s tax records. Foreign accounts do not appear in Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are kept under corporate names.
The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management LLC, which according to tax records paid $ 188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.
READ: Trump Paid No Income Taxes In 10 Of The Last 15 Years: Report
READ: After New York Times revelations, Trump says he paid millions in taxes
In response to questions from The Times, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank that has offices in the United States to pay local taxes” associated with efforts to do business. . there.
He said the company had opened the account after establishing an office in China “to explore the potential for hotel deals in Asia.”
“Agreements, transactions or other business activities never materialized, and since 2015, the office has been inactive,” Garten said. “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 held.
China remains a problem in the 2020 presidential campaign, from the president’s trade war to his criticism of the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.
His campaign has tried to portray former Vice President Joe Biden as misinterpreting the dangers posed by China’s rising power. Trump has also tried to strike out his opponent with exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims about Hunter Biden’s business there while his father was in office.
As for the former vice president, his public financial disclosures, along with the income tax returns he voluntarily submitted, do not show any income or business of his own in China. However, there is ample evidence of Trump’s efforts to do business there.
As with Russia, where he unsuccessfully explored hotel and tower projects in Moscow, Trump has long sought a licensing deal in China. His efforts date back to at least 2006, when he filed for trademark applications in Hong Kong and the mainland. Many approvals from the Chinese government came after he assumed the presidency.
In 2008, Trump carried out an office tower project in Guangzhou that never got off the ground. But their efforts accelerated in 2012 with the opening of an office in Shanghai, and tax records show that one of Trump’s China-related companies, THC China Development LLC, claimed $ 84,000 in deductions that year for travel expenses, fees. legal and office expenses.
The Times said Trump’s tax records show he has invested at least $ 192,000 in five small businesses created specifically for projects in China over the years.
Those companies claimed at least $ 97,400 in business expenses since 2010, including some minor payments for accounting taxes and fees as recently as 2018, the Times reported.
