How China Bought Trump
Sunday, April 02, 2017
By Michael I. Niman, The Public | Op-Ed
Candidate Trump was pretty hard on China, terming the country a "currency
manipulator," which, arguably, it appears to be. He promised that on day one
of his presidency, he'd officially label the country as such, which would be
his first step toward placing a 45 percent import tariff on Chinese goods.
Once in office, Trump took his rhetoric up a notch and shocked the
diplomatic world by also threatening to end the United State's One China
policy, which was instated by Richard Nixon as a condition of normalizing
relationships between the US and China.
The policy is rhetorical, viewing China and Taiwan as one nation. On the
ground, however, the policy is essentially meaningless, with the US still
conducting trade with and supplying military aid to Taiwan. For China,
however, who still views Taiwan as a breakaway province, this rhetorical
concession is the foundation beneath our friendship -- and it's also the
third rail running through our relationship. Mess with it and we rewind the
clock to 1970.
Obama's Terrible, Terrible Deal
Trump apologists in the Republican Party were quick to walk back his threats
to blow up the One China policy, explaining that their leader was just doing
what he does best, throwing out an opening salvo and maneuvering into
position for negotiating and deal-making -- his signature skill. Our trade
relations with China, born in the Nixon administration and amped up and
refined under the free-trading Ronald Reagan's tutelage, are, according to
the amnesiac Trump, a "terrible deal" cooked up by "worst president in
history," Barack Obama. Trump's apocalyptic moves to release military and
economic chaos between the US and China, we're supposed to believe, actually
belied skillful bargaining to pressure China to walk back "Obama's"
terrible, terrible deal. An unbelievably bad deal.
But then, after breathing fire in China's direction for months, that odd
little mouth that seems to crawl all over Trump's face uncharacteristically
and unexpectedly ceased its Sinophobic fury. When it opened again, the
negotiator-in-chief was quietly reversing course, recognizing and committing
to support the One China policy while seeming to forget about his 45 percent
tariff promise.
Trump made his move. He came to the chessboard with a machete but China
didn't lay down their king. After bringing US-China relations to the brink
of destruction, where was the deal? What did we finally get from China that
was worth this risk? If the deal Trump struck with China is not
self-evident, it's because our question -- "What did we get from China?" --
is flawed. We get nothing from China. Trump, however, between his anti-China
bloviating and his ultimate retreat, seems to have gotten quite a bit for
himself. We were never anything more than pawns in this game.
Trump vs. Dong
It unfolds like this. Trump claimed in 2015 that the trademark value of the
Trump name was worth $3.2 billion, roughly the same as Fanta or Chipotle.
This represents about one third of his claimed net worth. That number could
have been significantly higher if Dong Wei, a Chinese citizen, didn't oddly
also own specific business rights to the Trump name in China, the world's
second-largest and fastest-growing economy. Trump had spent much of the past
10 years fighting Dong over the name in Chinese courts, to no avail. Like
Trump, China also seems to know how to negotiate.
After Trump reversed his position and promised Chinese President Xi Jinping
that he would support the One China policy and recognize Taiwan as a
province of China, Chinese courts, in a surprise February ruling, also
reversed course and granted Trump, and not Dong, a 10-year trademark for
exclusive rights to use the Trump name on construction projects. As a
one-party state without the checks and balances common to Western
democracies, the Chinese government appears to have a strong influence over
its courts and their rulings, making this unexpected decision more of a
government policy statement than what we would recognize as a legal
deliberation. Coming on the heels of Trump's reversal on the One China
policy, this decision appears to be a quid pro quo settlement of a debt,
only on a nation-to-person (or nation-to-family) rather than
nation-to-nation basis.
Trump is a good deal-maker, at least when it comes to making deals to enrich
himself and his family. At the time of his unexpected Chinese court victory
last month, the Associated Press reported that Trump also had 49 other
trademark applications pending in China. In early March, however, Chinese
officials issued a wholesale preliminary approval for 38 of these Trump
requests, covering potential businesses from security services to hotels and
golf resorts. The Guardian cites a Hong Kong-based intellectual property
consultant, Dan Plane, who remarked that he never saw so many applications
approved so expeditiously in China, saying, "It's weird." Plane speculated
that officials from the ruling Communist Party were monitoring these
dealings, surmising that the decisions were "just way over your average
trademark examiner's pay grade."
As with the court ruling in favor of Trump over Dong, these quick and
favorable decisions appear to be part of the same quid pro quo deal where
Trump risked our national security to negotiate a personal business deal to
enrich himself and his family. This is exactly what the emoluments clause of
the US Constitution was designed to prohibit.
Trump Luxury Toilets and a Son-in-Law Deal
In addition to these new trademarks, and the other 11 that are still
pending, the Trump family also holds another 77 currently registered Chinese
trademarks. These trademarks are scheduled to come up for renewal during
Trump's scheduled presidency, giving China more currency to bid on US
foreign policy deals. Meanwhile, a plethora of Chinese companies with no
relation to Trump, such as luxury toilet manufacturer, Shenzhen Trump
Industrial Company, continue to use the Trump name on their branded
products, leaving the door open for years of Trump family litigation in
Chinese courts.
Business negotiations with the Chinese government aren't limited to Trump's
nuclear family, but appear to also enrich his extended kinship network. The
family of Trump's son-in-law and senior presidential adviser, Jared Kushner,
just secured a sweetheart deal from a Chinese company which the US
government had previously suspected with having close ties to the Chinese
government. In a deal that Bloomberg Business Week's sources term as
unusually favorable for the Kushner family, the Kushners get out from what
they describe as a problematic real estate investment and receive over $400
million from the Chinese company, the Anbang Insurance Group.
Also benefiting from this sudden influx of Chinese cash, according to
Bloomberg, is the Vornado Realty Trust, which partnered with the Kushners
and others on the same troubled real estate investment. They're scheduled to
receive a 1,000 percent return on their investment in the office portion of
the property and a 100 percent return on the retail portion. Bloomberg
reports that Vornado is President Trump's partner in his two highest-valued
properties. Vornado's CEO, Steve Roth, is an infrastructure investment
adviser in the Trump administration. To move forward, the China Kushner
Vornado deal will need federal approval, which you can bank on it receiving.
Yes, we are in uncharted territory. But there's really no great mystery
behind Trump's policy-making decisions, especially when they align with his
family's business needs. The Trump corporate footprint extends all over the
world. So many excellent countries. So many tremendous trademarks.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Michael I. Niman
Dr. Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism and media studies at
Buffalo State College. His previous columns are archived at
www.mediastudy.com and are available globally through syndication.
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