China's Sons and Daughters program

Ivanka Trump has scored a batch of new trademarks in China as her father continues trade talks with Beijing.

By Julia Horowitz

Seven trademarks were officially registered to Ivanka Trump this month with China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce, according to the government's trademark database. 

They are for items such as kitchenware, furniture, paper products and cosmetics.
The approvals come as Donald Trump remains engaged in trade negotiations with China on a wide range of issues.
Ethics experts say this raises conflict-of-interest concerns, since Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both serve as senior advisers in the White House.
"They come at a time when her father and his administration, in which she and her husband work, are making enormously consequential decisions with and about China," said Norm Eisen, the former ethics chief for President Barack Obama and a CNN contributor.
"The conflict comes because we do not know if the Trump administration is making these official decisions [on China] to benefit the US, or to get more trademarks and other benefits for the Trump family," he added.
Eisen is an attorney in lawsuits against Trump that allege that the president's acceptance of payments and other benefits from foreign governments is in violation of the Constitution.
Abigail Klem, president of the Ivanka Trump brand, said in a statement that the fashion line regularly files for trademarks, especially in areas where trademark infringement is common.
"The brand has filed, updated, and rigorously protected its international trademarks over the past several years in the normal course of business, especially in regions where trademark infringement is rampant," she said. 

"We have recently seen a surge in trademark filings by unrelated third parties trying to capitalize on the name and it is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark."
The company's recent actions were protective in nature, intended to guard against people unrelated to Ivanka Trump who want to capitalize on her name, and not necessarily because the brand intends to sell those products, a company spokesperson said.
Since her father's election, Ivanka Trump has stepped away from the management of her business, though she still retains an ownership stake. 

She isn't legally required to sell all her assets in order to work in the White House, though she is subject to rules for federal employees that prohibit her from participating in matters in which she has a financial interest.
The trademarks received preliminary approval in February 2018, and economic tensions between the US and China did not begin in earnest until March. 

Trademarks typically take about three months in China to move from preliminary approval to final approval.
The green-light comes at a time when the stakes between the two nations are incredibly high.
China and the United States recently committed to put on hold threats of tariffs that would have amounted to tens of billions of dollars. 

The countries said China would "significantly increase" purchases of US goods and services to reduce their trade imbalance, a top Trump administration demand.
But the situation remains in flux. China has not put a dollar amount on its commitment to boost purchases, and hasn't made any material concessions on intellectual property theft. 

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is scheduled to go to China on June 2 through June 4 to continue discussions, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Trump is also still working out what to do about ZTE, the Chinese phone and telecom equipment maker that was crippled by a US export ban issued last month, in punishment for violations of its sanctions against North Korea and Iran.
Easing penalties on ZTE is a priority for Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, and the Commerce Department briefed members of Congress on Friday about a tentative deal. 

But blowback from senators from both parties has been severe, eliciting questions about whether Trump will move forward with his reprieve.
Ivanka Trump's Chinese trademarks aren't the only Trump family business project to raise eyebrows amid negotiations with Beijing.
Earlier this month, a state-owned Chinese construction company formalized plans to develop a theme park in Lido, Indonesia — part of a broader project for which the Trump Organization has existing licensing agreements.
The move led ethics experts to voice concerns about the potential for quid pro quo dealings between Trump and China. 

The president isn't in charge of the Trump Organization anymore, but he has not sold his ownership stake in the company.

Corrupted Clown President

More than 60 lawmakers demand ethics investigation into Trump's relationship with China
BY MARY TYLER 

More than 60 Democratic representatives are demanding an ethics investigation into Trump's ties to China, following his recent push to rescue Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) posted a letter to David Apol, acting head of the federal government's ethics office, to Twitter on Sunday, stating that the request was prompted by Trump "advocating" for ZTE just days after the Chinese government gave one of the president's business endeavors a $500 million loan.
In the letter, lawmakers say the business dealing between the Trump Organization and China may have violated U.S. laws forbidding public officials from accepting payments or gifts from foreign entities without Congress's approval.
"The Chinese government's loan provides a clear financial benefit to Trump," the letter reads. "Despite the nearly unanimous recommendation by legal experts that he divest from his business interests before assuming the presidency, he failed to do so, instead placing his adult children in charge of day-to-day operations."

NEW: Will be sending this letter with more than 60 colleagues to demand an ethics investigation into @realDonaldTrump advocating for a Chinese company just days after China’s government gave his company a $500 million loan. pic.twitter.com/EC2fbjz4gr— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) May 27, 2018

Rep. David Cicilline

Because Trump still holds interests in his businesses via a revocable trust — an arrangement that allows him to draw funds at his discretion — the president will be able to oversee the project and "earn a profit if it succeeds," according to the letter.
The project, an Indonesian theme park and development that will house Trump-branded hotels and golf courses, snagged a $500 million loan from China earlier this month.
Three days after the loan was reported, Trump announced that he ordered his administration to buoy ZTE, saving it from financial collapse. 

Trump sought to revive ZTE earlier this month, roiling lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have sought to fortify restrictions on the company's ties to the U.S.
Despite a wave of bipartisan pushback, Trump on Friday appeared to confirm that his administration had reached a deal to put ZTE back in business.
"I closed it down then let it reopen with high level security guarantees, change of management and board, must purchase U.S. parts and pay a $1.3 Billion fine," he tweeted late Friday. 

"Dems do nothing but complain and obstruct."
Cicilline and the letter's co-signatories raised alarm over the short time frame between the loan's announcement and Trump's hinting at a renewed deal with ZTE.
"We believe that these events raise several potential constitutional and ethical violations," the letter continues. 

"… [T]he extremely short time period between the Chinese's [sic] government's loan and Trump's order to roll back penalties on ZTE warrants a review of any applicable federal ethics regulations."
Lawmakers went on to ask the ethics office to investigate whether the administration improperly secured the $500 million loan from China, whether Trump sought and obtained congressional approval before accepting the loan, and whether Trump or a member of his administration violated federal statute regarding conflicts of interest or ethics in the decision to ease sanctions on ZTE.
"The Trump administration has yet to give a satisfactory answer about the reason behind and the appropriateness of making concessions to ZTE, a Chinese company that illegally sold U.S. technology to hostile regimes," they wrote. 

"The Trump administration has also completely failed to address the suspicious timing between this policy reversal and the Chinese government's loan to a Trump-linked project."
"As you know, the issue of U.S. policy being manipulated by a foreign entity or the personal business interests of a public official is of grave concern to the American people. We ask that you promptly conduct a review of this matter and keep us apprised periodically about the progress of your investigation," the letter concludes.
Lawmakers have expressed previous concerns about ZTE potentially threatening national security. 

A 2012 House Intelligence Committee report warned congressional leaders to be wary of doing business with ZTE and Chinese competitor Huawei.
ZTE was banned by the Commerce Department from buying tech components after it violated U.S. sanctions by selling equipment to North Korea and Iran.

Chinese Fifth Column: VOA or VOC?

CHINESE DISSIDENT SILENCED BY VOICE OF AMERICA
Decision praised to investigate U.S. broadcaster bowing to Beijing pressure

By BOB UNRUH

A coalition of American organizations promoting freedom inside China is praising a decision that there will be formal investigation of those managers at Voice of America who cut off, mid-sentence more or less, a long-planned on-air interview with Chinese dissident Guo Wengui.
Five journalists there also were investigated over the interview.
According to a statement posted on the website for Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, which has spent years fighting China’s one-child, now two-child, limits that trigger mandatory abortions, the office of Inspector General at the U.S. State Department will investigate the “management decisions” of the situation.
Besides Reggie Littlejohn of WWRF, the statement was signed by “The Barefoot Lawyer” author Chen Guangcheng, China Aid Assoication chief Bob Fu, Jianli Yang of Initiatives for China, Yaxue Cao of China Change, Lianchao Han of the Hudson Institute and Fengsuo Zhou of China Human Rights Accountability Center.

Littlejohn’s posting explained, “For those unfamiliar with the Guo Wengui interview incident, on April 19 of this year, Voice of America China Branch was set to broadcast a three-hour live interview of Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire with close ties to the Chinese State Security apparatus, who claimed to have information about high-level official corruption in the Chinese regime.
“Specifically, Guo stated his intent publicly to expose how China’s State Security apparatus pressured the Chinese business community into financing its infiltration into organizations globally, as well as its monitoring of Chinese citizens.
“VOA’s upper-level management abruptly cut short the interview mid-broadcast, to the consternation of the Chinese audience, many of whom believe that VOA was kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The letter noted that five journalists then were “put on administrative leave.”
But the letter questions what happened to those journalists, and what triggered the abrupt shutdown of the interview.
It continued, “According to reports and information provided to us, the Chinese Communist regime took several extraordinary actions during the days leading up to the interview. For example, two days before the scheduled interview, officials from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned VOA’s Beijing correspondent to pressure VOA to cancel the interview. Officials then issued a warrant for the arrest of Guo. After this, the Chinese Communist Party issued a notice alerting Interpol of the Chinese regime’s arrest warrant for Guo. Having done this, they then accused Guo of being a fugitive criminal.
“The day before the interview, the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. called the VOA Mandarin Service and demanded cancellation of the Guo interview,” the letter cited.
“Could it be that VOA management did indeed cave to pressure from the Chinese government? If so, why would VOA management be vulnerable to such pressure? Could reports be true that members of VOA management and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG, VOA’s parent federal agency) have significant business interests in China?”
The letter expressed suspicions of conflicts of interest.
“We applaud the OIG’s decision to conduct an investigation. We look forward to the results of this investigation, which we believe will include a complete vindication of the VOA Mandarin Five,” the statement said.

The Free Beacon reported just this week that the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, abruptly canceled a scheduled public appearance by Guo Wengui just before it was to be held.
Spokesman David Tell admitted there had been pressure from China, citing a cyber attack, a denial of service, that targeted the institute and had been traced to Shanghai.
The report said Shanghai is home of the Chinese military’s Unit 61398, a military cyber espionage unit.
Guo, who now is in exile in New York, recently applied for political asylum.
“I am shocked at Hudson’s cancelation, but at the same time I am also pleased the issue has proven to the American people and people of the world my repeated warning of the virulence and harmfulness of the Chinese kleptocrats’ long reach,” Guo told the Beacon in a statement.
“The significance and value of this incident has surpassed my talk at Hudson.”
The report said the Chinese government intimidation is the latest incident “in what appears to be a Chinese government influence campaign in the United States targeting Guo.”

Deep Chinese infiltration: Guo Wengui blames Chinese moles in US broadcaster Voice of America for pulling plug on interview.

“China also has been linked to another cyber attack against the Washington law firm Clark Hill that until recently had been representing Guo in his bid for political asylum in the United States,” the report said.
Guo is thought to be worth about $28 billion from real estate and other business operations, although China has frozen much of that.
He has revealed some details about China’s intel operations and he could be an intelligence “bonanza” for the U.S., the report said.
A Today report this week also said Facebook blocked a profile under Guo’s name.
Facebook claimed in the report the pages included someone else’s personal identifiable information.

Explaining Trump’s Subservience to China

Trump’s Conflicts of Interest in China
By Carolyn Kenney and John Norris

A man reads a newspaper in Beijing, November 10, 2016.

China spots an easy mark
Before becoming the 45th president, Donald Trump’s efforts to develop businesses in China were most notable for their failures. 

A 2008 deal with the Chinese Evergrande Group to develop an office complex never came to fruition, and a 2012 deal with the electric utility State Grid Corporation of China to develop property in Beijing fell apart after State Grid was found to have been illegally using public land for the project. 

In October 2016, Chinese news media quoted Trump Hotel’s—formerly Trump Hotel Collection’s—CEO Eric Danziger telling attendees of a hospitality conference in Hong Kong that the group was still planning to open Trump hotels in 20 to 30 Chinese cities, as well as Scion—the brand Trump’s sons are planning to expand—hotels in other cities. 

These comments showed a remarkable level of ambition given Trump’s stalled efforts in China up to that time.
Indeed, Trump had tried for more than a decade to register trademarks in China to provide “construction-information,” essentially real estate agent, services in that country, only to be met with a series of unsuccessful rulings and appeals. 

Since 2005, Trump has applied for at least 130 trademarks in China, all of which—until recently—were met with zero success.
What is very important to note about China is how heavily involved the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) is in all decision-making processes, not only across all government agencies but also in the judiciary, which is not independent, as well as in state-owned enterprises, which include state-run banks. 

Regarding state-owned enterprises, Xi Jinping recently reminded these companies that the CPC has ultimate say over their decisions, stating, “Party leadership and building the role of the party are the root and soul for state-owned enterprises. The party’s leadership in state-owned enterprises is a major political principle, and that principle must be insisted on.” 

As such, any decisions made at state-owned enterprises are invariably made by the Chinese government, including decisions regarding the hiring, firing, and promotion of individuals who work in these enterprises.

Here is the danger of Trump’s conflicts of interest for the United States. 

Prior to taking office, on December 2, 2016, Trump spoke with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on the phone in an extraordinary breach of decades of U.S. foreign policy and protocol regarding China and Taiwan. 

Shortly after the call, it emerged that the Trump Organization was reportedly exploring the expansion of its business into Taiwan, reports that the organization has denied. 

In a televised interview, the mayor of Taoyuan, Taiwan, said that he had met with a representative of the Trump Organization in September to discuss possible real estate projects, and at least one Trump employee was found to have posted that she was in Taiwan on a business trip at the time.
As summarized in an Atlantic article, “The president of the United States breached decades of international protocol created to preserve a precarious balance of power. That decision raised not only the possibility that Trump was blundering into a potential international incident but also that he may have done so in part out of consideration for his business prospects.”

And then, lo and behold, China’s approval of one of Trump’s trademark applications became official—coincidentally only a few days after Trump reversed his previous position and endorsed the “one China” policy. 

This policy effectively recognizes the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate government of the mainland territory while allowing the U.S. government to have unofficial relations with Taiwan, governed by the Republic of China. 

In March 2017, China granted preliminary approval for 38 additional Trump trademarks, applications for which had been submitted in April 2016. 

While there are conflicting views about whether the process and timing of Trump’s recent trademark approvals are suspect, the reality of the matter is that in China, every administrative or judicial decision is a political one based on the government’s preferences and priorities; courts in China are not independent, but rather they report directly to the CPC. 

Also of note here is the fact that foreign companies have historically struggled to get equal treatment under Chinese law, so decisions in favor of a foreign company are striking. 

It is hard to avoid the appearance that China was giving Trump the trademarks in exchange for a direct shift in policy. 

As another Atlantic article points out: “Each subsequent ruling in his favor will serve to remind Trump of the personal profits he could reap by improving his own personal relations with China, even if doing so leaves the American people worse off.”
And the web of conflicts and Chinese influence on Donald Trump and the Trump family extends well beyond the longstanding trademarks issue.
In February, in its first major real estate transaction after Trump’s inauguration, the Trump Organization sold a $15.8 million penthouse apartment in Trump Tower to Chinese-American business executive Xiao Yan Chen, who also goes by the name Angela Chen and has been directly linked to a front group for Chinese military intelligence through the misleadingly innocuous-sounding China Arts Foundation. 

A 2011 congressional report was quite blunt in labeling the China Arts Foundation as “a front organization for the International Liaison Department of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department.” 

Chen also founded and is currently the managing director of a business consulting firm called Global Alliance Associates, which “facilitates access and establishes critical strategic relationships with the most influential public and private decision makers” in China by mobilizing its “extensive network of relationships with the highest levels of government officials—at national, regional and local levels—to facilitate immediate, efficient and skillful access into the Chinese market place.” 

Neither Chen nor the China Arts Foundation replied to requests for comment from reporters.
While Trump has removed himself from the board of directors of the corporation that runs Trump Tower, he still owns the company and thus continues to profit from it. 

This puts Trump in a position to profit from an individual—Xiao Yan Chen—who has ties to the highest echelons of the Chinese government and military and who would benefit enormously from access to the U.S. government.
Trump has been dependent on Chinese money for quite a while. 

According to an investigation by The New York Times, Trump holds 30 percent ownership of an office building in Manhattan at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, for which four lenders, including the state-owned Bank of China, provided a $950 million loan in 2012. 

Commenting on the loan, Richard Painter, George W. Bush’s chief White House ethics lawyer, stated, “Any payments from foreign governments or payments from banks controlled by foreign governments would fall under the emoluments clause. The loans from the Bank of China could be an issue.” 

The Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution makes it illegal for a U.S. president to directly benefit from payments from foreign powers.
The reach of Chinese influence and money has also been linked to the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. 

In 2016, Kushner Companies, which until recently was headed by Jared Kushner, was desperate to find outside money to put into a property at 666 Fifth Avenue for which his company had paid $1.8 billion in 2007—an outlandish overpayment in light of the subsequent 2008 market crash. 

The Fifth Avenue property was badly overleveraged and risked collapsing Kushner’s entire company. Once again, Chinese money seemed eager to come to the rescue. 

Kushner began talks with the massive Chinese financial firm Anbang Insurance Group to undertake a joint venture to redevelop the Fifth Avenue property.
Anbang is one of the most aggressive Chinese buyers of U.S. real estate and has very close ties to the Chinese government. 

Its shadowy structure has caused suspicion about its real ownership and has led some U.S. firms to not work with the company because it doesn’t meet their client information guidelines. 

Anbang is headed by Wu Xiaohui, who is married to the granddaughter of former Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping.
The talks to secure the potential $4 billion deal between the Kushner and Anbang companies, however, reportedly ended a few days after Democratic lawmakers wrote letters to the Office of the White House Counsel and the treasury secretary expressing ethical and legal concerns over the deal. A Kushner spokesman declined to comment further to reporters about the deal ending.
And while Kushner has now stepped down from the Kushner family business, he will still be a beneficiary of much of the business through his trusts. 

The reverse is true as well: It appears that the family is trying to cash in on Jared Kushner’s new role as a White House senior adviser. 

According to The Washington Post, representatives from Kushner Companies, including Jared’s sister Nicole Kushner Meyer, recently gave a presentation to Chinese citizens in Beijing encouraging them to each invest $500,000 in the family’s Trump-branded New Jersey luxury apartment complex in exchange for an EB-5 immigrant investor visa. 

Known in China as the “golden visa,” the immigrant investor visa allows wealthy foreigners who provide large amounts of funding to U.S. projects that create jobs to apply for a visa and immigrate to the United States. 

As reported by Bloomberg, prior to taking on his role in the White House, Jared Kushner had raised $50 million from Chinese immigrant investor visa applicants for the New Jersey project. 

Ethics experts, including Painter, criticized the event, with Painter noting in a Washington Post article that the company “clearly impl[ies] that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. … They’re [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they’re going to want to invest.” The Kushner company spokesperson declined to comment on the Post’s story.
The Chinese Communist Party’s links to Trump go even further. 

In 2008, the state-controlled Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)—which reports to the CPC and is currently the world’s largest lender—signed a lease for the 20th floor in Trump Tower in New York City. 

The lease is slated to end in October 2019, meaning that a new lease will have to be negotiated while Trump is in office if the ICBC decides to renew. 

According to Bloomberg, the latest available data from Wells Fargo filings show that as of 2012, the ICBC was Trump Tower’s biggest office tenant, taking up 11 percent of its office space, and was paying more than any other major tenant in Trump Tower at $95.48 per square foot. 

According to data from CoStar Group, the deal has been worth more than $1.5 million annually to the Trump Organization. 

Many see the relationship between Trump and the ICBC as already violating the Emoluments Clause of the constitution, while others view it as a potential area for future violations of the clause, notably if Trump receives payments from the ICBC that are above market value.
In addition, the China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, a state-controlled company in China also known as Sinosure, is investing $425 million in one of Trump’s resorts in Indonesia, specifically for a theme park to be built by another Chinese state-owned company.
And, not surprisingly, Ivanka Trump also seems to be suddenly benefitting from all this newfound Chinese largesse. 

On the very same day that Trump and Ivanka met with Xi Jinping, China preliminarily approved three new trademarks for Ivanka’s brand to cover jewelry, bags, and a spa service.
Since Trump’s inauguration, Ivanka Trump Marks LLC has been granted preliminary approval of at least five trademarks in China, bringing the total number of registered trademarks for the company to 16, with 30 pending applications. 

While Ivanka no longer manages her brand, she still owns it. 

In an attempt to address potential conflict of interest issues, she put her brand’s assets in a family-run trust, which is worth more than $50 million, and pledged to recuse herself from issues that might present conflicts.
Conflict of interest laws bar federal officials, such as Ivanka and her husband, from participating in government affairs that could potentially impact their own financial interests or those of their spouses—a standard that they seem to not be meeting by any fair reading. 

Ivanka’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, has stated that Ivanka and her husband would avoid specific areas that could impact her business and be seen as conflicts of interest but that they are not under a legal obligation to step back from large areas of policy, such as trade with China. 

Gorelick also noted that Ivanka would recuse herself from conversations pertaining to duties levied on clothing imported from China but not on broad foreign policy.
In an example that highlights the potential dangers of these conflicts, The Guardian recently reported that a labour rights activist who was working undercover to investigate abuses at a Chinese factory producing Ivanka Trump-brand shoes is being held by police and two other labor activists were missing, “raising concerns the company’s ties to the US president’s family may have led to harsher treatment.” 

The executive director of the group investigating the factory, Li Qiang, said that the missing activists were preparing to publicly allege labor violations at the factory, “including paying below China’s legal minimum wage, managers verbally abusing workings and ‘violations of women’s rights.’” 

Li noted that he had contacted the Ivanka Trump brand about the violations on April 27 to request that the brand call on suppliers to comply with Chinese law but did not see evidence that any changes were made. 

The Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment to The Guardian, and calls to the factory owner went unanswered.

Follow the paper trail
According to Trump’s July 2015 financial disclosure—which was not verified by regulators and therefore may not include all of his foreign deals or assets—Trump owned, had ownership interest in, or was a managing member of several companies related to potential business in China, including the following:

• THC China Development LLC, president. Value: $100,001 to $250,000. Income amount: “None (or less than $201)”
• THC China Development Management Corp., chairman, director, president
• THC China Technical Services LLC, member, president
• THC China Technical Services Manager Corp., chairman, director, president
• THC Services Shenzen LLC, member, president
• THC Services Shenzen Member Corp., chairman, director, president
• THC Shenzen Hotel Manager LLC, member, president
• THC Shenzen Hotel Manager Member Corp., chairman, director, president

According to Trump’s May 2016 financial disclosure—which also was not verified by regulators and therefore may not include all of his foreign deals or assets—Trump owned, had ownership interest in, or was a managing member of several companies related to potential business in China, including the following:

• China Trademark LLC, member, president
• THC China Development LLC, president. Value: $1,001 to $15,000. Income amount: “None (or less than $201)”
• THC China Development Management Corp., chairman, director, president
• THC China Technical Services LLC, member, president
• THC China Technical Services Manager Corp., chairman, director, president
• THC Services Shenzen LLC, member, president
• THC Services Shenzen Member Corp., chairman, director, president
• THC Shenzen Hotel Manager LLC, member, president
• THC Shenzen Hotel Manager Member Corp., chairman, director, president

All of these obvious conflicts of interest should give Americans pause. 

If Donald Trump negotiates a trade deal with China, will he accept terms that will cost American workers jobs but help his hotel brand? 

If China makes aggressive military moves in Asia, will Trump fail to effectively respond because he is worried about jeopardizing his daughter’s trademarks in Beijing or losing Chinese financing for his properties? 

Americans can have no confidence that Trump’s decisions aren’t being driven by his business interests in China when he won’t release his tax returns. 

Already Trump has shown a pattern of backing down in the face of Chinese demands, as shown by his abrupt shift on the “one China” policy at  Xi Jinping’s request. 

When trying to explain Trump’s new subservience to China, one need look no further than his business interests.

The Godfather's Daughter

Ivanka Trump's firm seeks new trademarks in China, reviving ethical concerns
by Jackie Wattles and Jill Disis

A trove of Chinese trademark applications filed by Ivanka Trump's namesake business is focusing attention once again on the ethical complications presented by the Trump family's business ties.
At least 14 applications were filed by the Ivanka Trump company on March 28, according to documents reviewed by CNN.
Around the same time, Ivanka Trump -- the person -- joined her father's administration as a White House adviser, noted The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the filings. 

The Chinese government still needs to review the applications.
The trademark requests cover an array of products, from tapestries and video game equipment to snacks and booze. 

They come on top of 36 applications the company filed in China last year.
Ivanka Trump's business, which mostly makes clothing and accessories, says the latest trademark applications were filed to block others from profiting off of her name, not because she wants to sell the products in China.
But that's still a problem, says Larry Noble, the general counsel for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group.
He said the family's continued ties to their businesses raise questions about whether their profit motives could influence U.S. relations with other countries.
"China knows that to deny these applications would get a negative reaction from the president, and to expedite their approval would get a positive reaction from the president," Noble said.
"China is a huge market," Noble said, adding that Ivanka Trump's company could "stand to lose a lot if these applications are denied."
The Chinese government has insisted that its trademark review practices are carried out in accordance with the law.
Attorneys for Ivanka Trump did not respond to a request for comment from CNNMoney for this story.
Ivanka Trump resigned from management at her company, and her attorneys have in the past said that she would recuse herself from certain policy matters, like trade agreements, that are specific enough to affect her line of clothing and accessories.
But she still has an ownership stake in the company. 

And though Ivanka Trump's attorney has said the assets were moved into a trust, her client still stands to benefit from the company's profits.
Brand experts have told CNNMoney that China is a potentially important market for the Ivanka Trump brand. 

Ivanka Trump isn't as controversial a figure there as she is in the U.S., and Chinese women tend to idolize her femininity and success, they say.
The Ivanka Trump company says the filings are part of the "normal course of business." 

It said it applied for these trademarks in China in response to a "surge" in unrelated third parties trying to snag the Ivanka Trump name for themselves.
"It is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark," the company said in a statement.
Noble said the rationale might be true. 

But he added that it doesn't make the situation any less alarming. 

If Ivanka Trump wanted to completely avoid conflicts of interest, she should have either sold her entire stake or kept her company out of foreign markets, he said.
"When you go into government, you make sacrifices," Noble said. 

"When you're a public servant you're supposed to give 100% of your attention to your work. You're supposed to have the American public as your sole interest."
The newly reported trademark applications are not the first time ethics experts have raised concerns.
In April, China provisionally granted Ivanka Trump's business three new trademarks on the same day she dined with Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. 

The company filed the applications in early 2016 -- after Trump entered the race for president but before he won.
Those trademarks will be formally registered as long as no objections are raised during a three-month period following their preliminary approval.
Ivanka Trump's business now has 18 registered trademarks in China and five provisionally approved. With the latest filings, it also has at least 44 applications that haven't been reviewed by authorities yet.

The Chinese Deal: Reward for Trump's 'China First' Policy

Trump Awarded a New Chinese Trademark, This Time for Catering
By PAUL MOZUR

The Ivanka Trump jewelry store in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York last year. Ms. Trump could sell jewelry and wedding dresses in China under new trademarks granted by Beijing.

Trump and his daughter Ivanka could sell jewelry and wedding dresses and provide catering services in China under new trademarks granted in recent days by Beijing.
The new trademarks expand the president’s business interests in the world’s second-largest economy after the United States’, which have already stirred complaints over a conflict of interest.
During his campaign, Trump regularly blamed China for the loss of American industrial jobs and pledged to take a tough trade stance with Beijing. 

That position has since softened, in particular after an April meeting with Xi Jinping.
As a businessman, Trump has made money by licensing the use of his name on an array of products around the world, like vodka in Israel or soap in India.

He has added to that list since taking office. 

Over the last three weeks, China’s trademark office gave preliminary approval for one trademark to Trump for providing catering services and four to his daughter through her trademarking business, Ivanka Trump Marks. 

Ivanka Trump’s trademarks include those for jewelry, wedding dresses, watches and a range of electronic devices.
Trump applied for the trademark in April 2016, while his daughter applied for the four trademarks from May to July last year.
Trump has at least 89 trademarks registered and 28 others that have won preliminary approval. 

His daughter now has 17 registered trademarks and six that have won preliminary approval. Trademarks with preliminary approval are formally registered three months later if officials receive no objections.
Abigail Klem, the president of Ivanka Trump’s company, said that those trademarks were made “in the normal course of business” and noted that the company had taken similar steps in the past, “especially in regions where trademark infringement is rampant.”
She said the firm had seen a “surge” in companies trying to capitalize on the Trump name. 

“It is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark,” she said.
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The latest trademarks give the Trump Organization further control over its brand in a country where opportunists frequently register well-known trademarks in a practice called “trademark squatting.”
Since his political rise, leather goods, toilets and cosmetics bearing the Trump name but trademarked by others have been spotted being sold around China. 

To avoid such problems, lawyers often advise that brands register their trademarks across broad categories of goods.
The Trump Organization has said it will not make any more international deals. 

It is currently being run by Trump’s two adult sons.
China has said it has acted in accordance to law regarding Trump’s trademarks. 

Still, the family’s business dealings with China have been criticized.
Last weekend, two activists investigating labor practices at Chinese factories that make shoes for Ivanka Trump, among other brands, went missing, according to their employer, China Labor Watch, and a third was detained.
Trump’s business interests in China have also concerned some senators, who have pointed out that Beijing could use the trademarks to try to sway United States policy.
In February, Trump won a 10-year legal battle over the right to protect his name brand for construction projects. 

The ultimate trademark approval was disclosed days after talks with Xi and after Trump dropped his challenge of China’s Taiwan policy.

Banana Republic

Chasing After the Kushners in China
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer (third from left) urged wealthy Chinese in Shanghai on May 7 to invest in a Kushner Companies luxury apartment complex in New Jersey.

BEIJING — The tip came in the form of an advertisement posted in the elevator of a Beijing apartment building.
“New Jersey Central Tower,” it said above a rendering of a gleaming housing complex. 

“Government supports, star family builds.”
The “star family” referred to relatives of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser.

The ad gave the details of a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Beijing where investors would learn how they could obtain permanent residence in the United States by investing $500,000 in a project called “Kushner1.”
On Saturday, May 6, I showed up at a ballroom in the Ritz-Carlton, doing my best to blend in with a crowd of Chinese investors.
After about a half-hour, the keynote speaker took the stage: Nicole Meyer, Kushner’s sister and a leader of Kushner Companies, the family real estate business.
I listened attentively, jotting down her opening words: “This project means a lot to me and my entire family.” 

But about a minute into her speech, a public relations executive blocked my view.
“This is a private event,” she said. 

“I have to let you go. We don’t want to make a scene.”
I noted that the meeting had been publicly advertised. (A colleague in the Beijing bureau of The Times, Jonathan Ansfield, had spotted the notice inside the compound where he lives.)

But it was clear that the handlers were going to block me from hearing the rest of Meyer’s remarks. 

I left the ballroom, but my colleague Cao Li, a journalist in the Beijing bureau of The Times, managed to stay inside for a few more minutes.
Outside the ballroom, a team of about half a dozen public relations executives and security officials grew hostile, threatening to take us into a private room. 

They followed us throughout the hotel, trying to discourage investors from speaking out.
As journalists in China, we are accustomed to dealing with harassment. 

But we don’t typically encounter bullying at events where American companies hold court.
After the meeting, we ran after Meyer, asking whether she worried her business activities in China might create ethical issues for her brother. 

She wouldn’t answer but tried to calm down her irritated husband, Joseph Meyer, chairman and publisher of Observer Media, who shouted three times, “Please leave us alone!”
Later that evening, we broke news that Meyer had dropped her brother’s name and his White House role during her sales pitch at the Ritz-Carlton.

In the days that followed, Kushner Companies apologized; U.S. senators called for an end to the investor visa program that the company was using; and the mayor of Jersey City, N.J., where the housing development is expected to be built, said he opposed tax breaks for the company.
By Friday, Kushner Companies seemed to have grown tired of the controversy. 

The company announced that Meyer and other executives would leave China early, withdrawing from the rest of their roadshow.

Chinese Connection

America’s Princeling: Why China Loves Jared Kushner
The Kushner family real-estate empire, including a Trump-branded tower, was built with money from rich Chinese buying ‘investment’ visas to the United States.

By Sarah Rogers

HONG KONG—Chinese consumers are a finicky bunch. 

Plenty of American businesses have attempted to break into China, but a mixture of cross-cultural flops, unpredictable and rapid changes in tastes, and tight government regulation has brought down the likes of Home Depot and Best Buy, and thwarted the global domination of tech giants like Facebook and Google.
But when Nicole Meyer, who is a sister of Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, played up her relationship with her brother—a flagrant wink-wink-nudge-nudge using the the cachet of the White House—she was tapping into China’s strange Trump love, and something more.
The connections that Meyer was evoking in front of 100 potential investors and clients in Beijing’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel were obvious to the well-heeled men and women there. 

She is the sister of an American princeling, the sort of position that is bestowed on a limited few based on their family connections rather than actual achievements—and should they hand over some money to the Kushner family, successful entry to the U.S. would be guaranteed.
The whole Meyer/Kushner pitch aligns with what the Chinese know about their own ruling party’s “royalty,” where the princelings (and princesslings) have been opting for jobs in the private sector, leveraging family connections as part of the political elite.
Just last year, JP Morgan Chase was fined $264 million by U.S. regulators for hiring Chinese princelings, a move that was meant to bolster the bank’s business in the Asia-Pacific region, but was also a violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Meyer, as you’ll recall, touted the property dubbed One Journal Square in New Jersey as something desirable for wealthy Chinese individuals, stating bluntly that they would be awarded with fast-track immigration processing as long as they “invested” $500,000 in the United States.
The visa program, called EB-5, is an attractive channel for Chinese citizens who want to launder cash outside their homeland. 

There are multiple reasons for choosing to do this—some are looking for ways to bypass the strict banking controls that are in place in China; others want to live in a place where dirty air, dodgy food, talk of war on their doorstep, dubious “confessions,” and spy-related paranoia are no longer part of the everyday experience.
Some others, a rare few, are merely after better pre-collegiate education options for their children, going to the lengths of uprooting the entire family to get to the USA.
The Kushner real-estate empire is making a play to profit from those insecurities, in turn exploiting the EB-5 investor visa program.
This particular immigration procedure is, bluntly, a means for rich folks to acquire American residency. 

While other means of settling in the U.S. might involve a mountain of paperwork, the only kind of paper required under EB-5, to all intents and purposes, is the greenback.
All this is well known to Trump, who re-upped the EB-5 program a few days ago. 

Indeed, as Bloomberg reported last year, when Kushner Companies (then-CEO: Jared Kushner) were building Trump Bay Street in New Jersey, the firm they hired to attract investors circulated a video touting the EB-5 benefits to be had by buying there.
According to State Department statistics (PDF), 7,516 mainland-born Chinese were allocated EB-5 visas last year—the lion’s share. 

The second-most numerous national group were Vietnam-born persons: They acquired 334 visas under the same program. 

Here are a few more numbers: In 2005, the program granted only 350 visas in total; in 2007, 700 visas were issued; in 2014, EB-5 reached its quota of 10,000 for the first time ever. 

The numbers speak for themselves: The program is now skewed heavily to benefit Chinese investors.
For a time, Donald J. Trump was the xenophobe’s candidate of choice, as cries of “Build that wall!” reverberated at rallies and claims that the man “beat China all the time” fueled news cycles. 

But Trump has turned the tables.
With Jared Kushner’s name showing up in Beijing during a shameless sales pitch, drawing a direct line between his name and a problematic visa program that has been riddled with fraud, even bringing potentially corrupt money into America, the first family of America is now stained with another shade of embarrassment.
That Jared Kushner was officially absorbed into the Trump administration as a senior adviser—and Middle East peace broker, shadow diplomat, and the person to reinvent government, among other labors—only makes the Kushner family’s wanton cash-grab in China appear even more unprincipled.
No doubt the Kushner family knew before their sales pitch in Beijing that there would be fallout—in the West—if only in the form of a tarnished brand image. 

But a bit of bad press at home is merely the cost of doing business, one that carries negligible impact in hard-currency revenue.
On Sunday, Kushner Companies was quick to issue a statement to The Washington Post saying that it “apologizes if that mention of [Meyer’s] brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Meyer’s intention.” 

The firm then went on to emphasize that the real-estate project would provide $180 million in tax revenue in the next 30 years.
Right now, when there are major seismic waves hitting Washington, D.C. 

With the Russia probe only in its inception, and the termination of FBI Director James Comey leaving many wondering what will come next, one must ask: When will the Trump and Kushner families’ ties with China be examined in detail?
One might recall that on the day Trump met with Xi Jinping at Mar-al-Mago, Ivanka Trump secured China trademarks for her clothing, jewelry, and accessories brand.
So far, no one in the Trump-Kushner circuit has been held accountable. 

But it could hardly be more obvious that the family of a presidential candidate who failed to win a majority vote in America is profiting massively from their position.
The people of the United States might someday focus on this, and might someday care. 

But the Chinese? 

They know about princelings and princesslings, and working with them is just what one might call the art of the deal.

Banana Republic

Kushner Kin’s China Sales Pitch ‘Corruption, Pure and Simple’: Expert
by TRACY CONNOR

A former White House ethics adviser says that a sales pitch by Jared Kushner's sister to potential Chinese investors that was centered on a controversial visa program came "very, very close to solicitation of a bribe."
"This is corruption, pure and simple," said Richard Painter, who was an attorney for President George W. Bush and is now a University of Minnesota law professor.
The latest conflict-of-interest uproar to roil Donald Trump's administration arose this weekend as the Kushner Companies invited wealthy foreigners to sink cash into a New Jersey real estate project via the EB-5 program.
Kushner Company Apologizes Over Pitch to Chinese Investors

Addressing the crowds in Beijing and Shanghai at an event hosted by a Chinese immigration firm was Nicole Meyer, sister of Kushner, who is one of Trump's most trusted confidants and his son-in-law.
She name-checked Kushner, according to reporters from the Washington Post and the New York Times who attended. 

Trump's photo also was included in a slideshow that described him as a key decision-maker on the fate of the EB-5 program, but Kushner Companies said that was the work of the Chinese organizer.
The so-called "golden visa" program gives foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in U.S. development projects a faster track to pursue green cards for themselves and their families.

Nicole Meyer poses at a promotional event in Shanghai on Sunday.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday that Kushner, who has divested from his family firm, had "nothing to do" with the investor recruitment, and Meyer said through a spokesperson that she was sorry if anyone misinterpreted her mention of her brother.
But Painter and other ethics watchdogs said the episode was appalling and another example of the blurred lines between the Trump administration's business interests and public policy.
Even if Kushner knew nothing about the events, the company "had no right to use his name in this way or to use the president's image to try and raise money for their own family business," Painter said.
He said to avoid even the appearance of a conflict, the Kushner Companies and Trump's businesses should be removed from the EB-5 program, which was extended last week under a bill signed by the president.
At his daily briefing, Spicer said the EB-5 visa program, along with all visa programs, is under review by the White House.
Asked about the presentations in China, Spicer suggested there was no conflict of interest on Kushner's part.
"Jared has done everything to comply with the ethics rules ... and that had nothing to do with him per se," Spicer said at Monday's press briefing.
"He wasn't involved."
Kushner's personal attorney, Blake Roberts of the WilmerHale law firm, said in a statement that Kushner has "no involvement" in the operation of the Kushner Companies.
Kushner has also "divested his interests in the One Journal Square project by selling them to a family trust that he, his wife, and his children are not beneficiaries of, a mechanism suggested by the Office of Government Ethics," Roberts said.
"As previously stated, he will recuse from particular matters concerning the EB-5 visa program."

Kushner family impropriety

A spokesperson for the Kushner Companies said in a statement that Meyer mentioned Kushner at the China events "to make clear that her brother had stepped away from the company in January and has nothing to do with this project."
"Kushner Companies apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer's intention," the statement said.
But some event attendees told the newspapers that the company's connection to the White House was a definite bonus as they decided whether to put their money into the project.
"The Trump relationship is an extra point for me," Bi Ting told the Times after a presentation in Shanghai on Sunday.

Banana Republic

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump should recuse themselves from China policy
By Norman Eisen and Noah Bookbinder

The Godfather's family: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. 

Coming on top of months of revelations of China-related conflicts involving Trump and his relatives, reports that Jared Kushner’s family used his position to solicit Chinese investors were a tipping point. 

The president’s son-in-law and daughter Ivanka Trump should now broadly recuse themselves from working on China-related issues.
According to media reports, Kushner’s sister pitched a roomful of Chinese investors to participate in the EB-5 visa program and qualify for a path to U.S. citizenship by investing at least $500,000 in a New Jersey real estate project, Kushner 1. 

The proposal included dropping Jared Kushner’s name, alluding to his administration role and noting that the president will be a key decision-maker about the future of the controversial visa program. 

The implications were unmistakable; one Chinese investor who attended told a reporter that the Kushners’ proximity to the president was a key part of the project’s appeal.
This sales pitch is clearly unacceptable. 

The family business should not benefit from Jared Kushner’s name and position as assistant to the president. 

Moreover, while it’s not clear whether Kushner had any knowledge of or involvement in this conduct, he retains a financial interest in many family businesses. 

Thus, he stands to benefit when the company trades on his name. 

Kushner’s lawyers assert that he sold his interests in this particular project to a trust of which he is not a beneficiary — although we know of no reason he couldn’t be reinstated as a beneficiary in the future.
Kushner and his wife have in the past said they will comply with all ethics rules. 

If so, as a starting point, Kushner must immediately take steps to ensure that businesses with which he is or has been associated refrain from using his position to promote investments. 

In fact, no Trump or Kushner companies should utilize the EB-5 program; the possibility for the appearance of improper influence, and perhaps worse, is too great. 

Kushner also initially indicated that he would recuse himself from “particular matters” involving the EB-5 program, but under pressure this weekend appeared to be stepping back more broadly from participating in any issues related to that program — a welcome development.
But given the complex ties at issue here, and the events of the past several months, that is not enough. Other ties and negotiations between Kushner companies and China have emerged in recent months, and under federal ethics rules, these interests must be considered together with those of Ivanka Trump, also a senior presidential adviser. 

Trump’s companies, in which she retains ownership interests, do business in China, and she was recently granted provisional approval for valuable trademarks by China just as she was engaged in high-level contacts with Chinese leaders.
These involvements raise profound questions about whether the couple should more broadly recuse themselves within the area of China policy. 

There can be little doubt now that both Kushner and Trump face at least the appearance of a conflict — indeed, of multiple conflicts — when it comes to China policy, particularly on issues of trade, investment and immigration.
As one of the president’s most trusted advisers, Kushner has a much broader and more fluid portfolio than most other administration officials. 

Kushner’s situation is vastly different than that of former Obama administration secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker, who was permitted to retain her interests in a publicly traded hotel company that has properties in China. 

Compared with Pritzker’s situation, involving a company that was required to file public documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, there is much less transparency into Kushner or his family’s privately held business investors and lenders, or the degree to which these businesses are leveraged, at the same time that his influence within the administration appears unparalleled.
This is far more than a technical issue about the scope of ethics rules. 

We now face core questions about whether administration decisions relating to an important — perhaps the most important — foreign power are being made based on the interests of the country and the American people, or based on the business interests of senior officials.
Of course, we already had that concern with Trump himself, who has refused to divest from ownership of his global web of business interests.

With regard to China specifically, Trump has also received valuable trademarks from the Chinese government, including one that China had denied for a decade but granted after Trump switched course and reaffirmed the one-China policy. 

In addition, a bank owned by the government of China is a major tenant in Trump Tower in New York.
Can Kushner and Trump be trusted to protect American jobs from flowing to China or to pressure China if necessary in containing North Korea, or act appropriately on any of the other difficult issues that will arise with respect to China when these vast conflicts of interest persist?
It is well past time for this administration to begin drawing real and meaningful lines to avoid catastrophic conflicts of interest. 

The latest reports make it is even more important that Kushner and Ivanka Trump step forward and do the right thing. 

A broad recusal on China policy would be a good — and essential — start.

Banana Republic

The Kushners Add to Trump’s Growing Conflicts of Interest

• The sister of Trump's top adviser just pitched her White House connections to Chinese investors.
• Trump and his family see the Oval Office more as a personal moneymaking venture than an outlet for their deep-seated devotion to public service

By Timothy L. O'Brien

Banana republic's family ties. 

On Saturday, Jared Kushner’s sister was in the ballroom of a Beijing hotel busily promoting her family’s U.S. real estate projects to Chinese investors. 

She did so with aplomb: A photograph of Trump adorned a large screen at the front of the room, noting that the president is a “key decision maker” on a federal program the Kushners were taking advantage of to court foreign investors.
Javier C. Hernandez, a New York Times reporter, helpfully posted a photo of the entire set-up on his Twitter feed over the weekend:

The same photo was in a story Hernandez, along with Cao Li and Jesse Drucker, wrote for the Times over the weekend about the Kushner road show. 

Organizers of the Beijing event kicked out Hernandez and Li after they became uncomfortable with the reporters’ presence; the same fate befell Washington Post reporters covering the fundraiser.
Kushner has emerged as a key White House liaison to China, and his sister, Nicole Meyer, invoked her brother’s connection to her family’s business -- and his White House role -- during her presentation in Beijing.
The Kushners are trying to raise money through a controversial federal program known as EB-5, which grants foreigners a visa and possible U.S. citizenship if they invest at least $500,000 in American enterprises. 

The irony here is that Trump not only inveighed against China as an evil empire while on the campaign trail, he also made anti-immigration a central part of his platform and EB-5 was hatched in 1990 as a way to encourage immigration, investment and job growth in the U.S.
Meyer moved on to Shanghai on Sunday, where “burly security guards” at the Four Seasons Hotel reportedly screened attendees at another fundraiser and kept reporters safely outside in a lobby.
Guards can keep reporters at bay from time to time, but the Kushners -- and the entire Trump clan -- have done a poor job masking the raw financial conflicts of interest that have shadowed the White House and the two families’ business dealings. 

Meyer’s fundraising is only the latest reminder that neither family appears to be very concerned about the propriety of openly embroidering financial wheeling and dealing with nods to the significant policymaking power they also wield in Washington.
It may be tedious at this point, but here’s a short list of some other projects that have raised concerns that Trump and his family see the Oval Office more as a personal moneymaking venture than an outlet for their deep-seated devotion to public service:
Mar-a-Lago, where the president has spent most of his weekends since being sworn in, doubled its membership fee after Trump was elected. 

Trump has used the property to fete foreign dignitaries and used the same taxpayer-supported visits to tour other local Trump golf courses, generating gobs of free advertising for his business.
The Trump family continues to own a hotel in Washington that sits atop federally-owned land, allowing the Trumps to lease space from the same government that they run. 

The hotel has also become a sought-after destination for diplomats, lobbyists and others who transact with the federal government.
Trump has yet to release his tax returns, and hasn’t sufficiently distanced himself from the golf course development and licensing business he left behind at the Trump Organization. 

His two eldest sons and the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer oversee the business and a trust sheltering the president’s holdings, but the structure of the trust gives the president a window onto the company’s finances and leaves him with ample control over the trustees’ decisions.
Jared Kushner, the most powerful person in the White House after the president, has an equally tepid trust sheltering his holdings in his family’s business, and his mother is the trustee. 

Kushner has sold some of his holdings, but there is still insufficient transparency into all of his business dealings.
Kushner has also drawn attention for his efforts last year to raise funds for a financially-troubled skyscraper his family owns in Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue. 

The building is saddled with stifling debt and sub-par occupancy rates. 

Kushner attempted to get a major Chinese insurer, Anbang, to bail him out the building but that deal apparently collapsed after Bloomberg reporters wrote about it. 

Kushner also met with a major Russian bank during the same time frame but it’s unclear what that discussion concerned.
On a much smaller, but telling, scale, Ivanka Trump, who recently formalized her White House role as presidential advisor, has been heavily peddling her new book on her widely-followed Twitter feed after deciding not to go on a publicity tour because she thought that was a financial conflict. 

Her Twitter feed includes frequent updates on her policy roles at the White House, alongside warm family moments. (The State Department recently removed its own tweet hawking Ivanka’s book, demonstrating that the agency hadn’t learned from last month’s backlash over its website’s marketing campaign for Mar-a-Lago.)
Ivanka has come under scrutiny for how she operates and markets her clothing and accessories business -- and how aggressively the White House has supported her efforts.
Now we can add this past weekend’s fundraising tour in China to this list.
China has been an attractive business destination for the Trumps and Kushners, and the Chinese in February approved a series of lucrative trademarks for the Trump Organization. 

Trump’s company had spent a decade trying to secure the trademarks; a wave of approvals followed his election victory.
Most business deals can be enhanced and accelerated when the White House’s residents and family members want them to be. 

Until Congress, currently controlled by the president’s party, or the courts, which halted one of his key immigration initiatives, decide to slow things down, the rest of us will have to hope that the Trumps and Kushners recognize that they have something to lose by being craven.

The Chinese Connection

What do Kushner talks with China's Anbang mean for Trump?
BBC News

Kushner's company is under the spotlight over a possible property deal with a Chinese firm

A company part-owned by Donald Trump's son-in-law and now senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, is negotiating a deal with a Chinese company to redevelop 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The 41-floor ageing property, which occupies a full block that fronts Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Street, was purchased by Kushner Companies in 2006 for $1.8bn (£1.5bn). 

At the time, it was the highest price paid for a single building in Manhattan.
But does Chinese interest in the building, just a few blocks south of Trump Tower, raise questions over a conflict of interest with someone so personally and professionally close to the US president? 

And would a possible sale to China's Anbang Insurance Group pose security risks?

Deal or no deal?
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Anbang was planning a $4bn (£3.3bn) investment deal with the owners of 666 Fifth Avenue. 

The agreement, the news agency reported, would make Kushner Companies, owned by Jared Kushner and his father Charles, more than $400m (£327m).
The report says that some real estate experts consider the terms of such a transaction unusually favourable for the US company.

Kushner Companies is in "discussions" involving 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City

On Tuesday, however, Anbang said that reports circulating of its investment in the Fifth Avenue property were "not correct".
"There is no investment from Anbang for this deal," the company wrote in a statement.
Kushner Companies later confirmed that it is in "active discussions" over the building in Manhattan, but did not name Anbang specifically.
"Nothing has been finalised," company spokesman James Yolles told Reuters news agency.

What are the conflicts of interest?
After Kushner was given a senior role inside the White House, his lawyer told the New York Times that he "would recuse from particular matters that would have a direct and predictable effect on his remaining financial interests".
As an owner of Kushner Companies, and with close ties to Mr Trump, investment deals under negotiation between his company and firms such as Anbang do raise questions.
Responding to these concerns, company spokesman Mr Yolles said that Mr Kushner sold his ownership stake in 666 Fifth Avenue to family members, meaning that any transaction would pose no conflict of interest with his role at the White House.
"Kushner Companies has taken significant steps to avoid potential conflicts and will continue to do so," Mr Yolles said in a statement.

What do we know about the Kushners?
Jared Kushner, 36, is married to Mr Trump's daughter, Ivanka. 

In 2006, at just 25, the softly-spoken millionaire bought the once-venerable New York Observer newspaper.
Although he shares with Trump a complete lack of political experience, last year he exerted a powerful influence over the Trump campaign -- including digital strategy and top-level hires -- and carried that clout into the White House.

Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, is a senior White House adviser
His father, Charles, founded Kushner Companies in 1985 and made his fortune as a New Jersey property mogul.
A controversial figure, Kushner senior received a prison sentence in 2005 for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering.
At the time, he admitted setting up his own brother-in-law with a prostitute, secretly filming the liaison, and sending the tape to his sister in an effort to dissuade them from testifying against him.
The man who prosecuted Charles Kushner was the former US Attorney for New Jersey and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie.
Jared Kushner is reported to have been involved in counselling Trump to choose Mike Pence as his running mate, over Mr Christie.

What do we know about Anbang?
China's Anbang Insurance Group was founded in 2004. 

It is now one of the country's corporate goliaths with an increasingly large international portfolio and interests ranging from banking to traditional Chinese medicine.
The firm first came to prominence in 2015 when it bought New York's landmark Waldorf Astoria hotel for $1.95bn (£1.35bn), then the biggest US real estate deal by a Chinese buyer.

Barack Obama refused to stay at the Waldorf Astoria after it was sold to Anbang in 2015

Following the acquisition, then President Barack Obama refused to stay at the Waldorf Astoria during a UN general assembly gathering, citing security concerns.
Anbang has been making an aggressive push into the US property market over the last few years but little is known about the company.
In April 2016, the firm unexpectedly abandoned a $14bn (£9.75bn) takeover offer for Starwood Hotels, ending a three-week bidding war with Marriott. 

According to reports at the time, there were questions over its financing sources.
The company now claims to have total assets of more than 1.9tn yuan ($300bn, £240bn).

What are Angbang's political connections?
Anbang chairman Wu Xiaohui is considered one of the best politically-connected men in China, having married the grand-daughter of former leader, Deng Xiaopeng.

Anbang chairman Wu Xiaohui (left) is one of China's most politically-connected businessmen

Mr Wu, 49, is considered "reclusive" but in 2015 he appeared at a Harvard event in Beijing, where he spoke about his firm's investment strategy.
"We must win the first battle and every battle thereafter, as we are representing Chinese enterprises going global," he said.
Company records have also shown members of the board to include the son of a top military commander under former leader Mao Zedong and the son of China's former prime minister Zhu Rongji.

Are international deals a problem for Trump?
Trump's overseas business interests invite questions of whether his foreign policy decisions are directed by US interests or by his own -- or his family's -- business interests.
A section of the US Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause restricts what US presidents can accept from foreign governments.
America's founding fathers included this to prevent US leaders from being beholden to foreign governments.
After Mr Trump was elected in early November he spoke over the phone with Argentine President Mauricio Macri. 

After that call, the Trump Organization issued a press release indicating that Trump Tower Buenos Aires -- which had been waiting permit approval to be built -- was a done deal.
In January, Donald Trump said he had formally given "complete and total" control of the Trump Organization's businesses to his two sons in a bid to avoid conflicts of interest.
But meetings with Indian business partners and current projects in places like the Philippines and Brazil are also raising questions about what the power of the presidency could do for the Trump brand's international negotiating power.