On Friday Politico reported that US President Donald Trump's organization owes tens of millions of dollars to Beijing's state-owned Bank of China. The money is reportedly a real estate debt said to be due as soon as 2022.
The real estate in question is a billion-dollar building on the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, New York. Trump’s partner, Vornado Realty Trust, which owns 70 percent of the stake in the property, refinanced the real estate asset in 2012 with $211 million from the Bank of China, according to the report.
The president’s ownership of the real estate received plenty of attention before and after his election campaign in 2016, but arrangements with the Chinese bank helped divert attention from what was characterized by some as a potential conflict of interest for Trump, according to Politico.
“China was pitching for former vice president Joe Biden for the presidential election. If sleepy Joe Biden wins, China will own the United States,” Trump said during White House press briefing on 18 April.
If Sleepy Joe Biden were to win, China would own the United States. pic.twitter.com/4BowTnop4T
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) April 18, 2020
Despite Trump's accusation against Biden that the latter is soft on China, a nation presumed by the White House to be the number one economic rival of the US, the Trump Organisation - the family business said to be primarily owned by the president's sons while their father is in the White House - is engaging with another Chinese state-owned construction company, that has the contract to build a Trump World Golf Club in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to The Guardian.
