New Trump Towers Luxury Apts Near India’s Capital
($urrounded
by all that green $tuff)
Bye, bye scruples hello tons of new
money
GURGAON,
India (Washington Post) — Prospective buyers of luxury apartments in
the new Trump Towers project outside India’s capital are being lured with an
unusual promise: “If you buy a flat, we will fly you to the United States
to meet Donald Trump Jr.”
The developers of the 600-foot high-rises unveiled a sleek sales office
in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon last week, claiming they racked up
$23 million in sales — more than 20 units — in the first day.
Note: Gurgaon, the city, will soon bid adieu to its
current name and adopt the name Gurugram.
The sweetener?
One of the developers, Pankaj Bansal, told
the Press Trust of India said that “Donald Trump Jr.
will host the first 100 buyers in the United States.” Bansal, the Director of
M3M India, one of the partners on the project, declined to comment further for
that part of the story.
However, a representative for the project confirmed
Bansal’s remarks and added that the specifics of the buyers’ trip — where they
would be flown and under what circumstances they would meet Trump Jr. — were
still being worked out.
The launch of the new towers comes amid
rising concerns that Trump’s children:
including Donald Jr. and Eric Trump who run Trump’s businesses while he serves
as president are using their names to profit from his presidency when foreign
officials and others stay in Trump hotels or buy Trump properties and then
attempt to curry favor or gain special access to the first family.
A study released by the watchdog
group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found for example that the price
of the popular “Ivanka Suite in the Trump International Hotel in
Washington, DC” had increased from $914.00 a night (in 2017) to $2,134.00 a
night (in 2018).
Norman L. Eisen, Co-Chairman of CREW and a former Obama
ethics adviser, called the Indian developer offer (buy a condo and Jr. will fly
you to the U.S. for a meeting with him and maybe with Dad Donald, too): “Simply
outrageous.”
Eisen then
added: “They are auctioning off
access to the first family in a foreign land. What is to stop a foreign
national with interests before the U.S. government from purchasing a flat, or
tagging along with someone who did, simply to ask Don Junior to raise some
issue or concern with his father?”
The Trump Organization has more business entities in India than any other
foreign country mostly with licensing their name with payments of between $1.6M
and $11M since 2014.
The kicker: As with most Trump deals overseas deals, they lend
the Trump name, technical assistance, and advice but zero money invested directly in any of its five projects there.
Thus we must surmise that the name of the game is “selling
the Trump name.” That seems to the #1 profit goal. Meet, shake hands, make a
deal, use our name, and send us the name lease monthly – any more deals we can
work on?
Noteworthy: Some of those Trump partners have been the subject of tax
or money-laundering investigations. At least three have connections to
prominent Indian politicians, a scenario that the Center for American
Progress called in a report “a breathtaking array of
conflicts.”
That M3M (mentioned above) was embroiled in a long-running tax investigation that
the company said was resolved in its favor. Kalpesh Mehta, the head of Tribeca
Developers, the co-partner on the Gurgaon project, was one of three Indian
developers who visited Donald Trump shortly after his election in November
whose pictures with the president-elect set off a firestorm on social media.
My 2 cents: Again clearly today “The Art of the Con” –
or depending if you have a more cynical view: “The Wrath of Don.”
This whole Trump presidency is about making business
connections, running the country and entire government like a new business enterprise,
and capitalizing on the Trump name while in office and beyond while raking in
tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. I say enough is enough.
Thanks for stopping by.
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