While in the White House, Donald Trump’s businesses collected millions from at least 20 foreign governments, including a vast majority spent by China, according to a new report by House Democrats based on hundreds of pages of financial documents obtained from Trump’s longtime accounting firm.

What You Need To Know

  • While in the White House, Donald Trump’s businesses collected millions from at least 20 foreign governments, including a vast majority spent by China, according to a new report by House Democrats

  • The 156-page report, which outlines Trump administration actions House Democrats allege could be connected to foreign dollars given to his private businesses, comes as House Republicans have launched an impeachment probe — advocated for loudly by Trump — into Biden and his family’s business dealings in foreign countries
  • Some of the accusations from House Democrats against Trump include that the Chinese embassy, a government-controlled airline and a state-owned bank spent millions on Trump properties as they sought to avoid sanctions or survive U.S. regulatory scrutiny
  • Trump’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment
  • The 2024 GOP primary’s frontrunner spent Thursday morning and early afternoon posting dozens of articles, interview excerpts and screenshots of social media posts connected to E. Jean Carroll, a columnist who a jury ruled in May was sexually abused by Trump in the 1990s and defamed her

The report, which details dollars spent at just four of the former president’s hundreds of businesses in the first two years of his term, found foreign governments funneled $7.8 million to Trump properties. Chinese government-controlled entities alone spent over $5.5 million at three of Trump’s buildings. Saudi Arabia ($615,000), Qatar ($465,000), Kuwait ($303,000) and India ($282,000) rounded up the top five spenders, but countries from across the globe spent money on Trump properties while he lived in the White House.

“To be sure, we know about only some of the payments that passed into former President Trump's hands during just two years of his presidency fromjust 20 of the more than 190 nations in the world through just four of his more than 500 businesses,” House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wrote in the report’s foreword. “It is true that $ 7.8 million is almost certainly only a fraction of Trump's harvest of unlawful foreign state money, but this figure in itself is a scandal and a decisive spur to action.”

Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a member of the panel, echoed Raskin's comments but put it more plainly.

“If I'm gonna put it in very simple terms, it looks like a bribe, right?” Crockett told Spectrum News on Thursday. “I’m not talking about just Democrats — Independents and Republicans should be concerned if there is someone that has the type of power as the United States president, the person that literally has the nuclear codes, that is sitting there and they're taking money from people that don't like us, people that don't love us.”

The four properties examined in the report released on Thursday were the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.; Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas; Trump World Tower near the United Nations building in New York City and Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, where Trump made his residence for years prior to becoming president. 

House Democrats “are desperate to save face for Hunter Biden but there is a large difference between someone who leases commercial office space to a foreign company a decade ago (in 2008 to be exact) versus the son and family members of the Vice President extracting money from China, Ukraine and Romania and others while providing no apparent or tangible goods and services,” Trump Organization spokesperson Kimberly Benza wrote in an email, noting that the company does not have the ability to stop patrons from booking through third party providers and that at least some profits from foreign entities were donated to the U.S. Treasury.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment. The 2024 GOP primary’s frontrunner spent Thursday morning and early afternoon posting dozens of articles, interview excerpts and screenshots of social media posts connected to E. Jean Carroll, a columnist who a jury ruled in May was sexually abused by Trump in the 1990s and defamed her. 

Some of the accusations from House Democrats against Trump include that the Chinese embassy, a government-controlled airline and a state-owned bank spent millions on Trump properties as they sought to avoid sanctions or survive U.S. regulatory scrutiny. And the report’s authors allege Saudi Arabia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2018 as they pursued a friendly relationship with Trump amid tensions in the region and the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi.

“Saudi Arabia, I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million,” then-candidate Trump said at a 2015 campaign rally. “Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

The Trump Organization noted that one Chinese entity that spent money — the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China — began a 20-year office space lease in New York City’s Trump Tower in 2008. The report found the bank spent $5,357,495 on Trump Tower between February 2017 and October 31, 2019, when the lease was set to expire. 

 “I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower,” Trump said in his 2015 speech announcing his first run for president. “People say, ‘Oh, you don’t like China?’ No, I love them. But their leaders are much smarter than our leaders.”

House Democrats drew a line between the bank’s money and Trump’s decision to decline to sanction ICBC and other Chinese banks when they were accused of helping North Korean’s authoritarian regime.

“That narrative is insane, especially given there is no President in United States history who was tougher on China than Donald Trump,” the Trump Organization spokesperson wrote, adding that Trump “introduced billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs on their goods and services.”

The report concluded that at least 20 countries spent money on Trump’s businesses based on the documents investigators received:

  • China: $5,572,548

  • Saudi Arabia: $615,422

  • Qatar: $465,744

  • Kuwait: $303,372

  • India: $282,764

  • Malaysia: $248,962

  • Afghanistan: $154,750

  • Philippines: $74,810

  • United Arab Emirates: $65,225

  • Democratic Republic of the Congo: $25,171

  • Kazakhstan: $23,772

  • Thailand: $11,340

  • Self-Proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus: $8,800

  • Mongolia: $8,486

  • Lebanon: $7,720

  • Albania: $6,002

  • Kosovo: $4,950

  • Latvia: $2,739

  • Turkey: $1,894

  • Hungary: $1,011

  • Cyprus: $590

The documents obtained, hundreds of which were shared alongside the report, were won after a years-long legal battle with Mazars USA, Trump’s longtime accounting firm, that ended in 2022 when the Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee cut a deal with Trump. But when Republicans took control of the House last year, newly crowned House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., no longer held Mazars to the deal. On Thursday, Comer, who is leading the congressional investigations into President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, dismissed the report as well.

“It’s beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former President Trump. Former President Trump has legitimate businesses but the Bidens do not,” Comer said in a statement. “The Bidens and their associates made over $24 million by cashing in… No goods or services were provided other than access to Joe Biden and the Biden network.”

But Democrats on the House Oversight Committee argued Trump’s family benefitted far more vastly than the Biden family did, with California Rep. Robert Garcia arguing “there’s actually zero evidence that the president did anything wrong as it relates to his family or Hunter Biden.” Instead, Garcia told Spectrum News, Democrats have come armed with financial documents and public reporting on business deals like the $2 billion investment Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser Jared Kushner cut with Saudi Arabia after leaving office.

“President Biden has a son, who is a private citizen, never worked in the government, where there is no link or evidence to the president and his son's business dealings. President Trump has a son-in-law and a daughter that works in the White House that are government officials, who are in charge of Middle Eastern policy… who is gaining a $2 billion investment deal with the Saudis after leaving office,” Garcia said. “James Comer is a liar. And he continues to try to block this information from coming out. And if there's nothing to worry about, he should allow the information to come out.”

The 156-page report, which outlines Trump administration actions House Democrats allege could be connected to foreign dollars given to his private businesses, comes as House Republicans have launched an impeachment probe — advocated for loudly by Trump — into Biden and his family’s business dealings in foreign countries. Investigators have yet to publicly provide any evidence of wrongdoing or financial benefit to the president.

“That's the only thing that we've asked of the Republicans: if you've got evidence, then bring it forward,” Crockett said. The House Democrats report “is a lot more damning than anything that the Republicans are trying to push forward with.”

In the report, House Democrats called for legislation to strengthen the constitutional requirement that presidents disclose “foreign emoluments,” or gifts from governments abroad. The concern is, as Democrats allege Trump did, a president could allow “personal financial interest to dictate policy decisions.”

“No president has ever come close to doing what Donald Trump did, in receiving money from foreign princes, kings, and governments,” Raskin said at a press conference later on Thursday. “The Emoluments Clause is a central pillar of our Constitution. The Emoluments Clause is a statement that no titles of nobility will be granted. In the United States, we don't have kings and princes and nobles here.”