The family business · First term · № 19
State-owned ICBC paid an estimated $5.36 million in Trump Tower rent during Trump's first term
“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.”
- Date
- , Quote: campaign announcement at Trump Tower, June 16, 2015; rent figures from an SEC debt prospectus cited by House Oversight Democrats
- Subject
- China
- Benefit
- Real estate and licensing
- Government
- China
- Beneficiary
- Trump Tower Commercial LLC (Trump Organization)
- Amount
- $5,357,495 (estimated rent, February 2017 to October 31, 2019)
- Topic
- Ethics & conflicts
- Era
- First term
What happened
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, whose controlling shareholders are China's Ministry of Finance and Central Huijin, signed a lease for office space in Trump Tower in 2008 and agreed to pay $1,948,180 a year in base rent through October 31, 2019, according to a debt prospectus filed with the SEC. The House Oversight Democrats' January 2024 report estimated on that basis that ICBC paid at least $5,357,495 to Trump Tower Commercial LLC between February 2017 and the lease expiration on October 31, 2019, the largest single foreign government payment the report identified. The Justice Department alleged in 2016 that ICBC was among Chinese banks that had provided accounts to a company accused of conspiring with a North Korean bank to evade sanctions; the report noted that the Trump administration took no formal action against ICBC despite calls from House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce in 2017 to target Chinese banks doing business with North Korea. In October 2019 Eric Trump said the bank had decided to keep "a couple of floors" in Trump Tower, and Forbes later reported ICBC left the building in the first half of 2021. Mazars USA told the committee it found no ICBC records in its files. The Trump Organization said it donated more than $450,000 in estimated foreign government profits to the Treasury during the term. Freedom House rated China Not Free in every report from 2017 through 2020.