NEW YORK: Former US president Donald Trump’s businesses received at least US$7.8 million from foreign governments including China during his time in the White House, a congressional report claimed on Thursday (Jan 4).
Officials from Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey and Democratic Republic of Congo were among some 20 countries’ representatives who paid money to Trump’s hotel and real estate businesses during his presidency, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee wrote in their report.
The authors said that such revenues from overseas governments violated a constitutional ban on “foreign emoluments”.
“As President, Donald Trump accepted more than US$7.8 million in payments from foreign states and their leaders, including some of the world’s most unsavoury regimes,” said the report titled White House for Sale.
“We know about only some of the payments that passed into former President Trump’s hands during just two years of his presidency from just 20 of the more than 190 nations in the world through just four of his more than 500 businesses.”
“PROHIBITED EMOLUMENTS”
Regarding China, the report alleged that Beijing as well as businesses including ICBC bank and Hainan Airlines spent US$5.5 million at Trump-owned properties.
“Former President Trump violated the Constitution when the businesses he owned accepted these emoluments paid by (Beijing) without the consent of Congress,” the report said.
The authors say that the full amount could be higher as the US$5.5 million figure is based only on limited disclosures from Trump’s accountants Mazars and filings with the American financial regulator, the SEC.
In one expenditure dated Aug 27, 2017, a Chinese embassy delegation spent US$19,391 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
The report also claims that “Saudi Arabia paid at least US$615,422 in prohibited emoluments to former President Trump’s businesses over the course of his term in office from just (the Trump World Tower) and the March 2018 stay at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.”
“Former President Trump has also boasted about the continued willingness of the Saudis to do business on terms highly favourable to him,” the report stated.
Trump’s Washington hotel was sold in 2022 to a private investor group and rebranded under the luxury Waldorf Astoria line.
Source: CNA
