Business Deals Gone Wrong: Trump’s Conflicts of Interest in Mexico Carolyn Kenney and John Norris - Center for American Progress | |
go to original June 14, 2017 |
Investors in Donald Trump's Failed Mexico Resort Speak Out (KPBS News)
In 2006, President Donald Trump and Los Angeles-based real-estate development company Irongate announced plans to develop a Trump-branded resort in northern Baja, Mexico, to be called Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico. Trump and the developers spent two years marketing the resort and selling units. In short order, more than 80 percent of the condo units were sold, collecting a total of $32.5 million in buyer deposits. However, the resort was never built, although the Trump Organization still reportedly collected $500,000 in licensing fees.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, “every bit of [the deposits was] spent by the time Trump and his partners abandoned the project in early 2009 as the global economy was reeling.” As a result, many of the condo buyers sued Trump and his partners for fraud, with most of them accusing “Trump and two of his adult children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., of duping them into believing that Trump was one of the developers, giving them the confidence that it was safe to buy unbuilt property in Mexico,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Trumps have denied any wrongdoing, and in 2013, they settled the fraud lawsuit against them, the terms of which are confidential. Trump Organization Chief Legal Officer Alan Garten called claims that buyers were deceived “Categorically untrue.” For their part of the fraud suit, the developers agreed to pay condo buyers at least $7.25 million and likewise admitted no wrongdoing.
Related to this failed resort, in October 2016, a Mexican government official and former congressman, Jaime Martínez Veloz, filed a criminal tax fraud complaint with the Mexican federal government against Trump and the Baja resort developers. The complaint alleges that Trump and his partners avoided paying Mexican taxes on their $32.5 million predevelopment sales revenue.
In January 2017, on the same day President Trump signed an order to speed up the U.S.-Mexico border wall construction, Reuters reported that Martínez broadened the complaint to include allegations that “Trump violated Mexican law by, as a foreigner, seeking to buy property within 31 miles (50 km) of the U.S. border to develop the Trump Ocean Resort Baja project” and to “question whether Trump was issued a visa in relation with the project, in compliance with Mexican immigration laws.” Mexico’s attorney general’s office confirmed that it was investigating the complaint, and neither the Trump Organization nor the White House responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The interactive map above of the world spells out President Donald Trump’s and his family’s conflicts of interest in 25 countries around the globe (Center for American Progress)
... Mexico demonstrates that, again, because of Trump’s many conflicts, his foreign policy views and positions continue to be influenced by his business interests.
Read the rest at Center for American Progress
Related: Jorge G. Castañeda: The End of the Trump Administration? (Project Syndicate)
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