China Will Call Its Loan

On April 24, we were informed that Donald Trump owns 30% of the more than $1 billion, 43-story skyscraper at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York City, NY. In 2012 Trump's real estate partner refinanced the property, taking on a $211 million debt from the state-owned Bank of China, which matures in 2022.

After this information came to light, the Bank of China stated that it had sold its debt on the building shortly after the loan was made. That's reassuring because neither the Chinese government (nor any entity thereof) ever would lie about anything- not in denying this coronavirus entailed human-to-human transmission; not the concentration camps, dubbed vocational training centers, it has sent its Uighur citizens to; and not about the leverage it holds against the President of the United States of America. 

Whatever the veracity of the bank's claim

Chinese state-owned companies are constructing two luxury Trump developments in United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. The president and his daughter Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser, have been awarded trademarks by China’s government. And his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has courted Chinese investors in at least one other real estate deal.

“We actually explored all these foreign enterprises and how once he became president he’d be seen differently by foreign leaders who would have leverage over this president because he had investments in their countries and/or financial dealings with business enterprises and financial institutions and investors in their countries,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee. “He is highly conflicted with respect to China."

We should have taken Trump at his word when as a candidate for the presidency

he frequently derided “the corrupt political establishment,” saying that Wall Street titans were “getting away with murder” by paying no taxes. In a furious campaign ad, images of the New York Stock Exchange and the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs flashed onscreen as he promised an end to the élites who had “bled our country dry.” In interviews, he denounced his opponents for begging wealthy donors for campaign contributions, arguing that, if “somebody gives them money,” then “just psychologically, when they go to that person they’re going to do it—they owe him.”

He owes them. He knows it. And if he is re-elected (if not before), the bill will become due and as always, Donald Trump, faced with a choice between the interests of his country and his own, will do as he always has done.

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