Donald Trump spent years cultivating business projects in China, where he maintained a previously unknown bank account, The New York Times reported Tuesday, as the US president attempts to portray election rival Joe Biden as weaker on Beijing.

Trump has spent recent days promoting a murky claim that Biden’s son Hunter sold access to his father in Ukraine and China when he was vice president under Barack Obama.

It is Trump, however, who maintained an office in China during his first run for president, and partnered with a major government-controlled company, the Times reported.

Trump additionally keeps a previously unknown bank account in China, controlled by Trump International Hotels Management, according to an analysis of his tax records by the paper. It is one of only three foreign nations — including Britain and Ireland — in which he does so.

The tax records show the company “paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015,” the Times reported.

Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes.”

“No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” he told The Times. “Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”

Under his “America First” banner, Trump has portrayed China as the greatest threat to the United States and global democracy.

He has launched a massive trade war that has cost China billions of dollars, harangued Chinese tech firms and laid blame for the coronavirus pandemic with Beijing.

Even so, in 2008 Trump attempted an ultimately unsuccessful office tower project in Guangzhou, and in 2012 he opened a Shanghai office, the Times said.

Additionally, Trump Hotel Collection (THC) negotiated with the State Grid Corporation of China — an electricity company, and the country’s largest state-owned enterprise — to brand and manage a major development in Beijing, sources told AFP. But the bid was later abandoned.

Biden’s income tax returns and financial dealings meanwhile show no business connection to China.

Source:  AFP

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the UN Security Council’s arms restrictions against Tehran have all been terminated in defiance of the United States’ efforts.

“As of today [October 18, 2020], all restrictions on the transfer of arms, related activities and financial services to and from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and all prohibitions regarding the entry into or transit through territories of the United Nations Member States previously imposed on a number of Iranian citizens and military officials, are all automatically terminated,” a statement by the Foreign Ministry said.

The longstanding UN ban on the sale of arms from/to Iran is terminated under the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that blessed the 2015 nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers.

“As of today, the Islamic Republic may procure any necessary arms and equipment from any source without any legal restrictions, and solely based on its defensive needs, and may also export defensive armaments based on its own policies,” the Foreign Ministry added.

The statement made it clear that “the lifting of arms restrictions and the travel ban were designed to be automatic with no other action required.”

The Foreign Ministry said October 18 is “a momentous day for the international community,” praising the world for standing with Tehran “in defiance of the US regime’s efforts.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump suffered an embarrassing loss on August 14 as it failed to renew the Iranian arms embargo through a resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Russia and China voted against the motion and the remaining 11 council members, including France, Germany and the UK, abstained.

Following the humiliating failure, the United States vowed to use its “secondary” sanctions to block any arms trades with Tehran after the expiry of the UN ban.

US Special Representative for Venezuela and Iran Elliott Abrams claimed last month that Washington could deny access to the US market to anyone who trades in weapons with Tehran.

Sanctions “will have a very significant impact” on arms manufacturers and traders that seek to do business with Tehran, he told reporters.

Source: Presstv

U.S. President Donald Trump has tested negative for COVID-19 and he is not infectious to others, the White House physician said on Monday, 10 days after Trump announced he had contracted the coronavirus.

In a memo released by the White House just hours before Trump was due to resume holding campaign rallies, Dr. Sean Conley said the president had tested negative on consecutive days using an Abbott Laboratories BinaxNOW antigen card.

Conley said the negative tests and other clinical and laboratory data “indicate a lack of detectable viral replication.”

Trump’s medical team had determined that based on the data and guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “the president is not infectious to others,” Conley said.

Trump returns to the campaign trail on Monday night with a rally in Sanford, Florida, his first since he disclosed on Oct. 2 that he tested positive for Covid-19.

Critics fault Trump for failing to encourage supporters at campaign events, and even White House staff, to wear protective masks and abide by social-distancing guidelines. At least 11 close Trump aides have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Source: REUTERS

Russian President Vladimir Putin says some of his close relatives and people in his inner circle have already been vaccinated against the new coronavirus.

“My close ones, my close relatives, people who are working around me got vaccinated. I’m speaking about dozens of people — approximately about 50,” Putin said on Tuesday, according to TASS.

“Almost the entire command of the Russian Defense Ministry and other special services were inoculated,” the Russian president added.

Russia was the first country to register a vaccine against the coronavirus, and Putin announced that one of his daughters had received the inoculation and developed sustainable immunity against the disease in late August.

The White House bodyguards of the Secret Service are ever ready to “take a bullet” for the US president, but a danger they now face is Donald Trump himself, infected with Covid-19.

Trump’s rejection of masks in the White House and on the campaign trail helped foster a lack of vigilance that led to an outbreak among presidential staff and attendants, including several in the Secret Service, according to reports.

While being treated at the Walter Reed medical center near Washington on Sunday, Trump stretched protocol even further when he had a Secret Service team drive him around to wave to supporters outside the hospital.

The president and his bodyguards wore masks, but they were all in one vehicle with the windows shut, at a time when experts say he was highly infectious.

The White House later sought to justify the brief outing, saying “appropriate cautions” had been taken and that it had been “cleared by the medical team.”

But Walter Reed physician James Phillips described the drive as “insanity.”

“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” he tweeted.

“They might get sick. They may die. For political theater.”

– ‘Part of the job’ –

Risk is part of the job for the elite presidential protective division of the Secret Service. The agents travel with the US leader and the vice president at all times, famously putting themselves between attacker and target.

In 1963 Agent Clint Hill threw himself over the bodies of president John F. Kennedy and his wife Jaqueline after Kennedy, riding in an open car, had been hit by an assassin’s bullet.

“If I had reacted just a little bit quicker,” Hill later regretted. “I’ll live with that to my grave.”

In 1981 agent Tim McCarthy likewise shielded Ronald Reagan with his body and pushed him into his limousine after a shooter wounded the president and two others.

“That’s just part of the job,” says Ronald Kessler, who has written two books about the service. “When they sign up, they understand that they are going to be at risk, they could be shot.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed a different threat.

Battling an uphill fight to hold on to the White House in the November election, Trump has traveled the country holding rallies and fundraisers without requiring masks or social distancing.

Several Secret Service agents were forced to self-quarantine after a June rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the same happened again after a July speech to sheriffs in Tampa, Florida led to positive Covid-19 tests, according to the Washington Post.

The service also had an outbreak at its training academy in Maryland.

For what it called “operational sensitivity,” the Secret Service would not discuss how coronavirus has impacted them.

“The Secret Service will continue to follow established protocols to ensure the safety of our employees. The Secret Service does not discuss our protectees or the specific means and methods regarding our protective mission,” said spokeswoman Justine Whelan.

Kessler, who has also written a book about Trump, said the agents were “very loyal” to the president, whom he said “treats them with respect and consideration.”

Nevertheless, he added: “My opinion is, why take unnecessary risks and send the wrong message in this case when he took his jaunt?”

Michelle Obama, who as the wife of former president Barack Obama continues to enjoy Secret Service protection, took aim at Trump in a tweet on Tuesday.

“My heart goes out to everyone touched by this virus,” she wrote, “especially the Secret Service and residence staff whose service ought never be taken for granted.”

Source: AFP

US President Donald Trump has come once again under scrutiny for downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus — this time his own illness — as he returned to the White House after less than three nights in hospital for COVID-19 treatment, calling on people not to be afraid of the virus that has killed more than 210,000 people in the US.

Democrats have slammed Trump of rushing his release for the sake of politics, accusing him of politicizing his illness, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying he might become “a long-hauler”, someone who experiences longer-term consequences.

“He should not be dealing with it politically to make it look like he overcame the virus because he’s had such good policies,” Pelosi said. “He has been very destructive and dangerous to the country.”

Trump was admitted to the Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday after being diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

He left the hospital on Monday and went back to the White House, where he is expected to continue his recovery, according to his doctor.

The president tweeted before leaving the hospital that he “will be back on Campaign Trail soon.”

“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” Trump said in a recorded video message.

“We’re going back, we’re going back to work. We’re going to be out front. … Don’t let it dominate your lives. Get out there, be careful,” Trump said.

His campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the president plans to participate in the second presidential debate, to be set in Miami, on October 15.  

This has raised concern among health experts, including within his own administration, and drew criticism from politicians, including both Democrats and Republicans, who described his latest remarks on the disease as “irresponsible” and “shocking.”  

“COVID-19 is something that is killing a lot of people. And it’s definitely a threat to people’s overall health,” said Otto Yang, a professor of infectious disease at the University of California.

“I think it’s up to the individual to judge if that’s something to be afraid of or not,” he added.

Source: Presstv

Infected and contagious, President Donald Trump briefly ventured out in a motorcade on Sunday to salute cheering supporters, a move that disregarded precautions meant to contain the deadly virus that has forced his hospitalization and killed more than 209,000 Americans.

Hours earlier, Trump’s medical team reported that his blood oxygen level dropped suddenly twice in recent days and that they gave him a steroid typically only recommended for the very sick. Still, the doctors said Trump’s health was improving and that he could be discharged as early as Monday.

With one month until Election Day, Trump was eager to project strength despite his illness. The still-infectious president surprised supporters who had gathered outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, driving by in a black SUV with the windows rolled up. Secret Service agents inside the vehicle could be seen in masks and other protective gear.

The move capped a weekend of contradictions that fueled confusion about Trump’s health, which has imperiled the leadership of the US government and upended the final stages of the presidential campaign. While Trump’s physician offered a rosy prognosis on his condition, his briefings lacked basic information, including the findings of lung scans, or were quickly muddled by more serious assessments of the president’s health by other officials.

In a short video released by the White House on Sunday, Trump insisted he understood the gravity of the moment. But his actions moments later, by leaving the hospital and sitting inside the SUV with others, suggested otherwise.

“This is insanity,” Dr. James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed who is a critic of Trump and his handling of the pandemic. “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die.”

“For political theater,” the doctor added. “Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater.”

White House spokesman Judd Deere said Trump’s trip outside the hospital “was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.” He added that precautions were taken, including using personal protective equipment, to protect Trump as well as White House officials and Secret Service agents.

Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, said the Democratic presidential nominee again tested negative for coronavirus Sunday. The results come five days after Biden spent more than 90 minutes on the debate stage with Trump. Biden, who has taken a far more cautious approach to in-person events, had two negative tests on Friday.

For his part, Trump still faces questions about his health.

His doctors sidestepped questions on Sunday about exactly when Trump’s blood oxygen dropped — an episode they neglected to mention in multiple statements the day before — or whether lung scans showed any damage.

It was the second straight day of obfuscation from a White House already suffering from a credibility crisis. And it raised more doubts about whether the doctors treating the president were sharing accurate, timely information with the American public about the severity of his condition.

Pressed about conflicting information he and the White House released on Saturday, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley acknowledged that he had tried to present a sunnier description of the president’s condition.

“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. Didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction,” Conley said. “And in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true. The fact of the matter is that he’s doing really well.”

Source: France 24

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Saturday Donald Trump’s health, including a fall in his blood oxygen level, had left the president’s doctors “very concerned” but that he had improved and there was never a risk he would have to hand over power.

Meadows’ comments to Fox News capped a day of back-and-forth in which conflicting reports about the president’s health created an opaque understanding of the leader’s actual fitness.

“He’s made unbelievable improvements from yesterday morning, when I know a number of us, the doctor and I, were very concerned,” Meadows said.

Earlier in the day a source familiar with the president’s health — later named in US media as none other than Meadows — had given a contradictory assessment stating that “the president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning.”

The statement also seemed at odds with an assessment by White House doctors that the president was “doing very well.”

Meadows seemed to clarify late Saturday that comments pertaining to concerningly poor health had applied to the day prior.

“Yesterday morning, we were real concerned… he had a fever and his blood oxygen level had dropped rapidly,” Meadows told Fox.

However, “there was never a consideration and never even a risk of a transition of power,” Meadows said.

Late Saturday, White House doctor Sean Conley said Trump was “not yet out of the woods,” but that the medical team was “cautiously optimistic.”

Meadows echoed a similar sentiment stating that he was “very, very optimistic, based on the current results.”

The president posted a video to Twitter late Saturday appearing relaxed in an open-collar shirt and blue suit jacket, telling viewers he would be “back soon” — but acknowledging that the crucial coming days would be “the real test.”

Source: AFP

A New York Times report that President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House — and, thanks to colossal losses, no income tax at all in 11 of the 18 years that the Times reviewed — served to raise doubts about Trump’s self-image as a shrewd and successful businessman.

That Sunday’s report came just weeks before Trump’s re-election bid served to intensify the spotlight on Trump the businessman — an identity that he has spent decades cultivating and that helped him capture the presidency four years ago in his first run for political office. The Times’ report deepens the uncertainty surrounding a tumultuous presidential campaign set against the backdrop of a viral pandemic, racial unrest in American cities and a ferocious battle over the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Since entering the White House, Trump has broken with tradition set by his predecessors by not only refusing to release his tax returns but by waging a legal battle to keep them hidden. The Times report suggests why that might have been so. It reported that many of Trump’s top businesses are losing money, even as those losses have helped him shrink his federal tax bill to essentially nothing.

Eugene Steuerle, a tax expert at the Urban Institute, said he wasn’t surprised that it turns out that Trump had paid almost no federal income tax. Most commercial real estate developers deduct large interest payments on their debts from taxable income, thereby lowering their tax bills. Typically, they also often avoid capital gains taxes by plowing profits from the sale of one building into the purchase of another.

“Most tax experts expected you would find little in the way of tax payments by President Trump,” said Steuerle, who served as a Treasury Department official under President Ronald Reagan.

The Times noted that Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said of the Times report that “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate” and asked for the documents on which the reporting was based, which the Times declined to provide in order to protect its sources. The Times said Garten then directly disputed only the amount of taxes Trump had paid.

Here are some key takeaways from the Times’ reporting:

Trump paid just $750 in taxes in both 2016 and 2017

The newspaper said Trump initially paid $95 million in taxes over the 18 years it studied. But he managed to recover most of that money by claiming — and receiving — a stunning $72.9 million federal tax refund. According to the Times, Trump also pocketed $21.2 million in state and local refunds, which are typically based on federal filings.

Trump’s outsize refund became the subject of a now-long-standing Internal Revenue Service audit of his finances. The audit was widely known. Trump has claimed it was the very reason why he cannot release his returns. But the Times report is the first to identify the issue that was mainly in dispute.

As a result of the refund, Trump paid an average $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2000 to 2017, the Times reported. By contrast, the average U.S. taxpayer in the top .001% of earners paid about $25 million annually over the same timeframe.

Trump has financed an extravagant lifestyle with the use of business expenses

From his homes, his aircraft — and $70,000 on hair styling during his television show “The Apprentice” — Trump has capitalized on cost incurred from his businesses to finance a luxurious lifestyle.

The Times noted that Trump’s homes, planes and golf courses are part of the Trump family business and, as such, Trump classified them as business expenses as well. Because companies can write off business expenses as deductions, all such expenses have helped reduce Trump’s tax liability.

Many of his best-known businesses are money-losers

The president has frequently pointed to his far-flung hotels, golf courses and resorts as evidence of his success as a developer and businessman. Yet these properties have been draining money.

The Times reported that Trump has claimed $315 million in losses since 2000 on his golf courses, including the Trump National Doral near Miami, which Trump has portrayed as a crown jewel in his business empire. Likewise, his Trump International Hotel in Washington has lost $55 million, the Times reported.

Foreign visitors have helped support Trump’s properties

Since Trump began his presidential run, lobbyists, foreign governments and politicians have lavished significant sums of money on his properties, a spending spree that raised questions about its propriety and legality.

The Times report illustrates just how much that spending has been: Since 2015, his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida has taken in $5 million more a year from a surge in membership. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association spent at least $397,602 in 2017 at Trump’s Washington hotel. Overseas projects have produced millions more for Trump — $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey.

Trump will face financial pressure as debts come due

Trump seems sure to face heavy financial pressures from the enormous pile of debt he has absorbed. The Times said the president appears to be responsible for $421 million in loans, most of which will come due within four years. On top of that, a $100 million mortgage on Trump Tower in New York will come due in 2022.

Source: AP

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale was taken to a Florida hospital after his wife told officers he threatened to commit suicide, media reports said.

Parscale, an imposing and outspoken figure, was replaced as campaign manager in July — just four months ahead of November’s presidential election — when Donald Trump was sinking in the polls.

Officers were called to a home “in reference to an armed male attempting suicide,” Fort Lauderdale police officer DeAnna Greenlaw told CNN on Sunday.

The man was later identified as Parscale by officers, who said his wife had made the call.

Parscale’s wife said her husband was “armed and had access to multiple firearms inside the residence and was threatening to harm himself,” Greenlaw told CNN in a statement.

He quickly surrendered to officers under a Florida law that allows the temporary detention of someone impaired by mental illness.

Parscale was demoted shortly after a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was widely panned for its poor attendance and a rambling speech by the president.

He remained a senior member of the campaign team.

“Brad Parscale is a member of our family and we all love him. We are ready to support him and his family in any way possible,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper.

“The disgusting, personal attacks from Democrats and disgruntled RINOs have gone too far, and they should be ashamed of themselves for what they’ve done to this man and his family.”

AFP