User:Steve Quinn/Abbede 221

Donald Trump’s Russian related business dealings

Donald J. Trump had pursued business deals in Russia for over three decades beginning in 1987. He visited Russia a number of times personally to explore potential business opportunities there. In 1996, Trump trademark applications were submitted for potential Russian real estate development deals. Trump's partners and children have repeatedly visited Moscow, connecting with developers and government officials to explore joint venture opportunities. However, Mr. Trump was never able to successfully conclude any real estate deal in Russia.

Russian customers
As Russia became a market economy during the post-Soviet era, Mr. Trump and his partners sought nouveau riche Russians to own and occupy Trump Tower residences located in New York and Florida. Pertaining to these sales, in a 2014 interview he said, “I know the Russians better than anybody."

Becoming well known
In 1987 Trump visited Russia to investigate developing a hotel. In 1996 Trump partnered with Liggett-Ducat, a small company, and planned to build an upscale residential development on a Liggett-Ducat property in Moscow. Mr. Trump commissioned New York architect Ted Liebman, who did the sketches. In Russia, Mr. Trump promoted the proposal and acclaimed the Russian market. At a news conference reported by the [Moscow Times], Mr. Trump said he hadn’t been “as impressed with the potential of a city as I have been with Moscow” in contrast to other cities had visited “all over the world.”

By this time, Mr. Trump made known is desire to build in Moscow to government officials for almost ten years “ranging from the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev (they first met in Washington in 1987) to the military figure Alexander Lebed.” Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, showed Trump plans for a very large shopping mall to be located underground in the vicinity of the Kremlin. The mayor complimented Mr. Trumps’ suggestion that this mall should be connected to Metro. Hence, Okhotny Ryad shopping center visitors now have access to the Metro (underground). Although the 1996 residential development did not happen, Mr. Trump was by this time well known in Russia.

Expanding the Trump brand
A wide-ranging business stratagem included Russia in ventures intended to internationally expand the Trump brand. It was in the mid-2000s that Trump transitioned from building and investing in real estate to simply licensing his name to hotels, condominiums, and commercial towers. Although a strategy of taking a percentage from the sales was successful in other countries, his terms were not agreeable to Russians and conflicted with their way of doing business with American hotel chains.

Between 2000-2010 Donald J. Trump partnered with a development company headquartered in New York represented by a Russian immigrant, Felix Slater. During this period, they partnered for an assortment of deals that included building Trump towers internationally and Russia was included. For example, in 2005 Mr. Slater acted as an agent for building a Trump tower alongside Moscow River with letters of intent in hand and “square footage was being analyzed.”

In 2006, Trump’s children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka stayed in the Hotel National Moscow for several days, across from the Kremlin, to see promising partners, with the intent of doing real estate development deals. Mr. Sater had traveled to Moscow with Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr.

Mr. Trump was associated with Tevfik Arif, formerly a Soviet- commerce official and founder of a development company called the Bayrock Group, of which Mr. Sater is also a partner. Bayrock searched for deals in Russia while Trump branded towers were attempting to further expand in the United States. Mr. Sater said, “We looked at some very, very large properties in Russia,” on the scale of “…a large Vegas high-rise.” In 2007, Bayrock organized a potential deal in Moscow between Trump International Hotel and Russian investors.

During 2006-2008 Trump’s company applied for a number of trademarks in Russia with the goal of real estate developments. These trademark applications include: Trump, Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Trump Home. In 2008, he said as a speaker at a Manhattan real estate conference that he feared the outcome of doing business deals in Russia, but he really prefers “Moscow over all cities in the world” and that within 18 months he had been in Russia a half-dozen times.

Moscow bound
In 2011 Trump posted on Twitter that he was “Heading to the airport to go to Moscow for business”.

In 2013, Donald Trump was in Moscow personally to discuss development deals, after selling the rights to host Miss Universe that year to Russian real estate developers. On Twitter he wrote, “TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next.” Father and son real estate developers, Aras and Emin Agalarov, were intended as host of the competition, as announced in Las Vegas earlier that year. On the night of the pageant, the Agalarovs also hosted a dinner for Mr. Trump, as well as Herman Gref, CEO of the Russian government’s Sberbank PJSC. Mr. Trump did not successfully culminate a develop deal during this period.

Business contacts
In a 2015 interview, Mr. Trump said that his repeated attempts to launch business deals with Russians resulted in contacts with “…the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people. I can’t go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary.”

Trump Super Premium Vodka, glazed with 24-karat gold, debuted in 2007 at the Millionaire’s Fair in Moscow. It was successful only until sometime in 2009. Trump attempted to create a reality show in St. Petersburg, starring a Russian athlete. However, this was not successful.

Several members of Trump’s corps of advisers have business links to Russia: former campaign manager Paul Manafort; incoming national security adviser Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; and previous Congressman and Trump campaign spokesman Jack Kingston. Also, at a 2008 Manhattan real estate conference Donald Trump Jr. said one of Trumps main sources of income are Russian customers, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” ref name=staff>