Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Just shut up, you treasonous moron.


China Contributing $500 Million to Trump-Linked Project in Indonesia
By Jack Crowe

May 14, 2018 1:56 PM


A subsidiary of Chinese state-owned construction firm Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) signed a deal last week with the Indonesian firm MNC Land to build an “integrated lifestyle resort,” as part of Beijing’s global influence-expanding “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative.

The project will include a number of Trump-branded hotels, a golf course, and a residence. While the $500 million loan will not be directly allocated to any of the Trump-branded features, Beijing’s contribution of half the project’s total operating budget ensures the success of the broader theme-park venture.

The Trump properties are considered flagship elements of the theme park, according to MNC marketing materials, and internal documents obtained by Agency France-Presse show Trump’s sons have been directly involved in its planning.

Though negotiations began prior to Trump’s election and his pledge to cease engaging in new business dealings with foreign governments, the project raises questions about the extent to which the Trump organization is dependent on Beijing amid contentious trade negotiations with the U.S.

“Even if this deal is completely and entirely above board, it simply furthers the perception of impropriety” surrounding Trump’s business dealings, Christopher Balding, an economics professor at Shenzhen’s HSBC Business School, told AFP. “Especially with the potential trade war, this is not a good look….Critics will be entirely right to demand answers.”

Trump refused to divest his Trump Organization holdings upon taking office, much to the consternation of government-ethics experts, opting instead to place his holdings in a blind trust and hand over control of the business to his sons.

Vice Premier Liu He, China’s top economic official, is traveling to Washington this week to continue negotiations over the large trade deficit between the U.S. and China. Though negotiations have proved fruitless thus far, the administration has remained confident that Beijing will make significant concessions to avert the harsh tariffs the Trump administration has threatened to implement

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contributing-500-million-trump-linked-project-indonesia/

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Ivanka’s Trademark Requests Were Fast-Tracked In China After Trump Was Elected
Tommy Beer
Former Staff
• • Topline
The Chinese government granted a total of 41 trademarks to companies linked to Ivanka Trump by April of 2019—and the trademarks she applied for after her father became president got approved about 40% faster than those she requested before Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, according to a new book by Forbes’ senior editor Dan Alexander.

On March 29, 2017, Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of President Trump, became an official government employee, joining her husband, Jared Kushner, as an adviser to her father.

The day before that appointment, Ivanka applied for 17 new trademarks with the Chinese government.

In early May of 2018, ZTE, a Chinese electronics maker, said that it had halted “major operating activities” after being penalized by the United States Department of Commerce for breaking sanctions and selling electronics to Iran and North Korea.

Yet, in mid-May, President Trump surprisingly reversed course when he indicated a willingness to rethink the punishment and vowed to work with Chinese President Xi Jinping to prevent the collapse of the ZTE, which employs 75,000 people, with Trump tweeting, “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

That same month, May of 2018, amid tense trade negotiations between China and the United States, China approved seven Ivanka trademarks, according to Alexander’s book, White House, Inc.

Alexander’s book also details how “after Ivanka met with the prime minister of Japan, his country approved three trademarks for her business, in less than one third of the time it had previously taken, according to an analysis of data from the World Intellectual Property Organization,” and that Canada registered three trademarks following Ivanka’s sit-down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Key Background:
Over a span of two months in late 2018, the Chinese government granted 18 trademarks to companies linked to President Trump and his daughter. In October alone, according to the Associated Press, China’s Trademark Office granted provisional approval for 16 trademarks to Ivanka Trump Marks LLC. The new approvals covered Ivanka-branded fashion gear, including sunglasses, handbags, shoes and jewelry, as well as beauty services and voting machines. In January of 2019, China granted Ivanka’s company preliminary approval for another five trademarks covering child care centers, wedding dresses, and art valuation services. The applications were filed in 2016 and 2017.

Tangent:
In her first memoir, The Trump Card, Ivanka stated she paid full price for an expensive two-room apartment inside a Trump-owned building in New York City, but financial documents cited in Alexander’s book reveal Trump paid just $1.5 million, or $968 per square foot, for the apartment, while other tenants in the building paid on average $1,667 square foot.

Critical Quote:
“Ivanka receives preliminary approval for these new Chinese trademarks while her father continues to wage a trade war with China. Since she has retained her foreign trademarks, the public will continue to have to ask whether President Trump has made foreign policy decisions in the interest of his and his family’s businesses,” wrote government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/22/ivankas-trademark-requests-were-fast-tracked-in-china-after-trump-was-elected/?sh=7bd950b31d60

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Report: Jared Kushner’s $2 Billion Saudi Check Appears Even More Comically Corrupt Than Previously Thought
“The reason this smells so bad is that there is all sorts of evidence he did not receive this on the merits.”

By Bess Levin

Back in April, The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner’s four years of Saudi ass-kissing and murder-excusing had paid off in the form of a $2 billion investment from the kingdom‘s sovereign wealth fund to his newly formed private equity firm. That struck a lot of people—ethics officials among them—as pretty shady given that far from having impressed would-be clients with his investing prowess, the panel that performs due diligence for the Saudi fund concluded that no one in their right mind would give the former first son-in-law a dime. Among other concerns, the panel noted that management was “inexperience[d],” that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk,” that its fee seemed “excessive,” and that the firm’s operations were “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” Given those reservations, it warned that the country’s Public Investment Fund should stay far, far away from Kushner’s firm—a recommendation that was overturned by the fund’s board, which happens to be led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, i.e., the guy who approved a plan to kidnap, kill, and dismember a journalist via bone saw and benefited from Kushner’s unwavering support within the White House and reported insistence that the prince could “survive the outrage just as he [had] weathered past criticism.” (Again, just so it‘s abundantly clear, the “outrage” and “criticism” were over a Saudi dissident and U.S. resident being chopped up into pieces.)

So, it wasn’t that difficult for people to put two and two together and infer that Kushner’s firm seemingly got $2 billion to invest—and at least $25 million to pocket regardless of performance!—as a thank-you for being so good to a human rights-abusing autocrat. And a new story from the Times suggests, somehow, even further shadiness than that.

The paper’s Kate Kelly and David Kirkpatrick report that “shortly before the 2020 election,” Kushner unveiled a government-sponsored program dubbed the Abraham Fund, which the Trump administration said would raise $3 billion for projects around the Middle East, capitalizing on the Abraham Accords, the diplomatic agreements normalizing relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. As part of that endeavor, Kushner and then Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin “crisscrossed the Middle East in the final months of the administration on trips that included trying to raise money for the project.” But according to the Times:

It was little more than talk: With no accounts, employees, income or projects, the fund vanished when Mr. Trump left office…. [The fund] was overseen by Adam Boehler, at the time the head of a newly formed development finance agency and a college roommate of Mr. Kushner’s. Mr. Boehler joined Mr. Mnuchin on his Gulf visit in October and accompanied Mr. Kushner to Qatar and Saudi Arabia in December. Officials said the fund would invest in poorer countries that joined the accords, and its first projects were said to include upgrading checkpoints into Israel from the Palestinian territories and building a gas pipeline between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Neither project went anywhere. Nor did the efforts to enlist Gulf money.

In January last year, Mr. Boehler announced the only publicly disclosed investment in the Abraham Fund: a “commitment of up to $50 million” from Uzbekistan, a relatively low-income country. Uzbek officials said at the time that they sought to reduce poverty and foster regional cooperation. Long criticized for human rights abuses, Uzbekistan had begun a lobbying push in Washington to improve its image after a leadership change; its new president also gave Mr. Trump a $2,950 silver replica of a historic building and his wife a $4,200 bed cover. But no money for the short-lived Abraham Fund was ever delivered.

Yet while the countries (and the people who live there) that were supposedly going to benefit from the Abraham Fund never saw any money materialize, Kushner and Mnuchin would soon be raking in the cash. As the Times notes, Mnuchin’s newly formed commercial enterprise “received $500 million commitments from the Emiratis, Kuwaitis and Qataris,” plus $1 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, within a few short months of his time at the Treasury Department ending. And while Kushner took slightly longer to get things off the ground, his new firm “reached an agreement for a $2 billion investment from the Saudis six months after he left government.” And while we would never suggest anything about this looks less than totally aboveboard, others seem to believe it might be!

…an examination of the two men’s travels toward the end of the Trump presidency raises other questions about whether they sought to exploit official relationships with foreign leaders for private business interests. In the weeks after the election, Mr. Kushner made three trips to the Middle East, the last for a Jan. 5 summit in Saudi Arabia with leaders of the Gulf monarchies. Mr. Mnuchin that day began a tour through the region that was planned to include private meetings with the heads of the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait—all future investors.

The path from public service to private investing is well trod by members of both parties. The two Treasury secretaries under President Barack Obama later went to Wall Street. But Mr. Kushner and Mr. Mnuchin stand out, ethics experts said, for the speed of their pivots and for the sums they raised from foreign rulers they had recently dealt with on behalf of the United States…. Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies government ethics, said each fund raised different issues. For Mr. Kushner, she said, “the reason this smells so bad is that there is all sorts of evidence he did not receive this on the merits.” But for Mr. Mnuchin, who was a successful investor before entering government, the biggest question is whether he was burnishing relationships as Treasury secretary that he knew would be useful to him in the near future, Ms. Clark said. “If he was, that is an abuse of his office,” she said. “I don’t know if it is criminal, but it is certainly corrupt.”

Kushner declined the Times’ request for comment. A spokesman for Mnuchin denied to the Times that he had solicited investments while working in government and claimed, without providing specifics, that some of the details of the story were inaccurate. The spokesperson added that the firm has diverse backers, “including U.S. insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and other institutional investors.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/jared-kushner-affinity-partners-saudi-arabia