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.

The Godfather's Daughter: An Unlikely Story of Greed, Treason, and Corruption

China Approved More Ivanka Trump Trademarks the Same Week As Daddy’s ZTE Pivot
By David Boddiger

Optics and ethics are two words that simply are lacking in the Trump family lexicon.
We already knew Donald Trump’s recent about-face on the Chinese telecom company ZTE—considered a national security threat by both Democrats and Republicans—was suspect. 

Shortly after Trump tweeted earlier this month that he was reversing policy on ZTE, news reports surfaced that the Chinese government had agreed to grant $500 million in loans to an Indonesian resort project that would directly enrich Donald Trump. 

The loan was announced just 72 hours before Trump tweeted his order to bail out ZTE from impending closure.
Now, the government ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is reporting that the Chinese government approved five trademark applications for Ivanka Trump’s businesses the same week Trump tweeted his pro-China reversal. 

Another trademark was approved the previous week.
The trademarks, applied for in March 2017, give the president’s daughter’s company rights in China on goods including bath mats, textiles, and baby blankets, CREW said.
“Ivanka Trump Marks LLC already holds more than a dozen trademarks in the country as well as multiple pending applications. China is also a major supplier of Ivanka Trump-branded merchandise,” CREW stated.
Ivanka has placed her part of the business that bears her name in a trust, but she continues to receive profits, the watchdog group said. 

Last year, three of her business’s trademark applications in China were approved the same day she and her husband, presidential adviser Jared Kushner, had dinner with Xi Jinping at the family’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Also, Trump’s looming trade war with China by way of new tariffs on Chinese goods would conveniently exempt clothing, a not-so-subtle benefit to his daughter’s businesses.
On Friday, Trump announced via Twitter that he had struck a deal with ZTE to put the company back in business in exchange for China’s payment of a substantial fine, its placement of U.S. compliance officers at the firm, and changes to its management team, The New York Times reported. 

In doing so, Trump blamed former President Barack Obama and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Democrats in general, for ZTE’s past spying misdeeds, while unabashedly making himself out to be a hero.
But it isn’t just Democrats who are angered by Trump’s ZTE policy shift. 

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio spent all week “raising alarm bells” over Trump’s dealing, according to NBC News, including delivering a “25-minute tirade on the Senate floor.”
“Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal... for #ZTE & China,” he tweeted on Friday.
Additionally, both chambers of Congress advanced amendments to block any executive action ordered by Trump that would benefit ZTE, NBC reported.

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.

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.

The Manchurian President

Is Trump On China's Payroll? If So, Impeach Him
By Anders Corr

Wednesday brought a wave of news about Trump’s increasingly cozy relationship with China, including on his indirect financial connections. 

The press digested, uncomfortably, Trump’s claim that “Korea actually used to be a part of China.” 

He repeated that Chinese propaganda to the press after he got it direct from Xi Jinping. 

Also Wednesday, reports revealed that Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire gambling boss with casinos in Macao, China, gave $5 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. 

This is the largest single gift ever given for a U.S. president’s inauguration. 

Journalist Matt Isaacs has asked, “Is dirty money spent by corrupt Chinese officials at Macau casinos flowing into our elections, at least indirectly? ” 

The mix of Chinese money and Trump’s softening on China is worrisome, and if a causal relationship can be proved, Trump should be impeached. 

He isn’t good for the Republican Party, and the Democrats will oblige.
Frames of Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are display in a photo shop in Beijing on April 17, 2017. 

Trump’s administration is softening on China’s ally North Korea, and according to experts, might accept a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, rather than an outright ban. 

That would be no real change, as North Korea’s decades-long pattern of playing the U.S. is oscillation between promises of a freeze, and breaking those promises. 

Trump’s phantom aircraft carrier strike group supposedly steaming toward North Korea didn’t help. 

Since Mar-a-Lago, Trump has had mostly good things to say about China. 

He seems to have forgotten that China is sacking U.S. technology to build its military, and the military of North Korea that now threatens us.
Trump’s offer to give China a good economic deal if China helps with North Korea is a chump deal, and we are the chumps. 

It will not be popular with Republican voters. 

It rewards China for the threat China created. 

Rather, Republicans should hold China responsible for anything North Korea does, including nuclear strikes. 

Trump should demand of China that it start acting responsibly and uphold the international laws to which it, and its allies, are already bound. 

Trump should call China’s bluff. 

No more Mr. Nice Guy. 

Obama tried that, and it failed.
But Trump has become the quintessential Mr. Nice to China. 

He doesn’t seem to notice that countries like the Philippines and Vietnam, since Trump’s election, are getting increasingly authoritarian. 

That President Duterte of the Philippines, whose drug war has been responsible for up to 6,000 extrajudicial killings, likens himself to President Trump, should be a warning signal. 

An impeachment complaint has been filed against Duterte, who is under China’s influence. 

Trump’s fate could be the same.

Trump was sitting pretty at Mar-a-Lago with Xi earlier this month. 

Like Duterte, Trump did not appear to care much about China’s human rights abuse or lack of democracy. 

“Donald Trump’s first meeting with Xi Jinping was all about business,” declared the Economist.
Let’s face it. 

Trump is soft on China. 

Trump denied it on April 18, four days after press reports that he was getting chummy with pro-China business interests, including Boeing. 

But 55 percent of voters in a February poll doubted his honesty. 

The Trump family business connections to China exploded shortly after his election. 

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, almost sealed a $400 million deal with a Chinese company for investment into a New York property. 

This was mixed with Kushner’s back-channel political deals with China’s Ambassador to the U.S.

After the election, Trump met with Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Henry Kissinger, who has taken a consistently pro-China stand and has served as a liaison between China and international business interests. 

All that business talk seems to have had an effect. 

Trump flip-flopped on calling China a currency manipulator, and on the One-China policy. 

Rex Tillerson’s proposed blockade of China’s militarized South China Sea artificial islands was toned down and now seems forgotten.
To ice the cake, on Wednesday China’s Foreign Ministry jumped to defend China’s speedy granting of trademarks to Ivanka Trump. 

She got them on the day she sat at dinner with Xi. 

Donald Trump, too, got his brands trademarked in China shortly after the election. 

That’s all worth money, and it raises a question. 

Is China trying to put Trump on its payroll, even indirectly? 

If China succeeds, the American people are getting reamed and should fight back hard. 

This includes impeachment.
Sadly, the swamp has come to Washington like never before, and Trump appears to be the blond creature most at home in its increasingly surreal waters. 

It is not a run-of-the-mill, money-green swamp. 

It could be a red tide. 

We need a Constitutional Amendment and a new set of tough laws that will keep money and foreigners out of U.S. politics, before foreigners start running the show. 

This especially applies to Russia and China.
Vice President Mike Pence is a clean Republican who would make a great President, and could get elected for two more terms. 

He could pardon Trump, who would return to cable with better ratings, and more Twitter followers, than ever. 

Except for Xi, that’s a win-win outcome for all.