Trump: I Have No Deals With Russia. I have stayed Away

[Zippyjuan]

From his press conference: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/11/transcript-of-president-elect-donald-j-trumps-news-conference.html


So, I tweeted out that I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals in Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we've stayed away. And I have no loans with Russia. As a real estate developer, I have very, very little debt. I have assets that are — and now people have found out how big the company is — I have very little debt, but I have no loans with Russia at all. And I thought that was important to put out. I certified that.

So, I have no deals, I have no loans and I have no dealings. We could make deals in Russia very easily if we wanted to. I just don't want to because I think that would be a conflict. So I have no loans, no dealings and no current pending deals.

He tried to as recently as 2013. https://www.rt.com/business/trump-plan-skyscraper-russia-479/


US Billionaire Donald Trump has revealed plans to construct a skyscraper in Russia, similar to New York’s famous Trump Tower. The plans were confirmed during his visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe 2013 pageant taking place at Crocus City Hall.

“I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper,” Trump said. However, he did not mention the names of the participants, or discuss negotiations and the size of the investment.

Billionaire Araz Agalarov is the owner of Crocus City Hall, where the Miss Universe finals are being held. He confirmed that his company, Crocus Group, had been participating in the talks. “We started talking about joint work in the field of real estate a few days ago,” Agalarov told Itar-Tass.

Crocus Group is heavily involved with the Miss Universe 2013 pageant. The event is co-owned by NBC Universal and Trump, who is currently in Moscow to award the ‘Miss Universe 2013’ crown to the winning contestant Saturday night.

[phill4paul]

That was 2013 and this is...2017. The years really do fly by.

[specsaregood]

And? I don't see the point. Does he have deals in Russia currently? If 2013 is the most recent you have, then it seems like an honest statement to me.

[Zippyjuan]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/06/trump-s-russia-towers-he-just-can-t-get-them-up.html


Trump’s Russia Towers: He Just Can’t Get Them Up

Despite a lot of boasts and some shady fixers, Trump has spent decades trying and failing to get a foothold in the Russian market.

Donald Trump's infatuation with Russia goes back more than 30 years, to the glasnost period of the Soviet Union when communism proved no impediment to get-rich-quick artists with loose scruples and gaudy tastes. In 1988 Trump was famously hoodwinked by Ronald Knapp, a Gorbachev impersonator, who stopped by Trump Tower and shook The Donald’s hand in what the latter clearly imagined was a rare moment in history, not to mention a wide enough slit in the Iron Curtain for capitalists on the make to wriggle through.

In 1986, Yuri Dubinin, Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, invited Trump to Moscow to discuss building a hotel that could stand as a symbol of the mogul’s international reach. Trump sought to erect his signature “Trump Tower” as an unmistakable totem to himself in the once-impenetrable capital of the world’s only other superpower.

And yet, not then, and no since, have we seen a gilded monstrosity rising in above the onion domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Russia, it seems, has proven too elusive for Trump to establish his highly touted name-brand, even though he and his scions have boasted of the steady stream of rubles pouring their way.

“Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment,” Trump said in a 2007 court deposition (about which more anon). “We will be in Moscow at some point.”

A year later, his son Donald, Jr. — a recognizable surrogate on his father’s campaign trail — told a real estate conference the Russian market had “natural strength, especially in the high-end sector,” and, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Which sounded a little odd after he said in the same speech, “As much as we want to take our business over there, Russia is just a different world. It is a question of who knows who, whose brother is paying off who. . . . It really is a scary place.”

But, really, scary or not, the Trumps just couldn’t resist, especially once investor confidence in Russia started rising again, with Russia’s reserves climbing to a whopping $250 billion by 2006. This was not the work of financial geniuses. The global prices for oil and gas – Russia’s main exports — were at all-time highs, enabling Putin to pay debts, mint new crony billionaires, and consolidate his power as a lot of money was “pouring“ in a lot of different directions.

In the spirit of “who knows who,” the Trump Organization has tried working through a series of dubious yet well-placed intermediaries, at least one of whom has been linked, in U.S. court, to the Genovese crime family and other mobs.

To date, though, his proudest accomplishment in the East has been hosting the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant in Moscow.

Not only did that event afford him the opportunity to be surrounded by gorgeous Slavic women (two out of three of his wives came from former Soviet satellite states), it also enabled him to mingle with Moscow’s extravagantly wealthy upper class. Or, so he claimed.

Upon returning home, Trump bragged to Real Estate Weekly about the beauty contest, “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room.” In attendance were rich performers like pop singer Philipp Kikorov who participated in the event, but his guest of honor, Vladimir Putin, did not show despite Trump rather fawning invitation.

“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow,” Trump tweeted that year. If so, “will he become my new best friend?”

Well, no. But Putin may have made amends for his absence by dispatching via a lacquered box a kind note to a well-connected intermediary, an oligarch who was already one of Trump’s known business associates and cohost of the pageant.


As for Trump’s dream of seeing his gilt moniker reach into the Moscow skyline, it never came to pass. He signed a one-year agreement with Bayrock to find a Trump Tower location in the Russian capital. Bayrock came back with a site that was home to a former pencil factory; and Felix Sater was instrumental in developing it. The deal fell apart.

Trump many other trial balloons into the Russian air only to see them pop. There were his abortive condos in Moscow project in 1996; the luxury “24K Super Premium Vodka” that went out of business in 2008; the statue of Christopher Columbus — which was taller than the Statue of Liberty, made by Georgian sculptor Zerab Tsereteli and donated by the Russian government — that was supposed to land in Trump’s Riverside South development in Manhattan. It was rejected by New York and other cities until it found a home in Puerto Rico.

[Brian4Liberty]

And? I don't see the point. Does he have deals in Russia currently? If 2013 is the most recent you have, then it seems like an honest statement to me.

The point must be that Trump tried to do business in Russia, but it didn't work, so that is why Trump has no connections to Russia, and Trump hates Russia for rejecting him. Hold on, the propaganda is that Trump loves Russia. Something doesn't add up.