October DealsAmazon USOctober deal check: compare before you payAmazon US: current deals, useful picks and tech finds.Check DealsPC HealthRecommendedCrashes, freezes, slowdowns? Check your PC nowSpot repairable issues before they interrupt work.Check PCOctober DealsAmazon USDeal season is back - check today's better picksAmazon US: current deals, useful picks and tech finds.See Picks×
Skip to content
The Finance Base
The Money Desk · Blog
Re:

House Report Found at Least $7.8 Million in Foreign Payments to Trump Businesses While He Was President

A House Oversight Democrats staff report found at least $7.8 million in foreign-government payments to four Trump properties in a limited set of records. The figure is not a complete accounting of Trump’s income or profit.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

A House Oversight Democrats staff report identified at least $7.8 million in payments from 20 foreign governments to four Trump-owned properties during the records it reviewed. The report’s figure is a documented minimum from a partial set of accounting records—not a complete count of all foreign-government business, Trump’s personal income, or his net profit.

What the $7.8 million figure covers

Released on January 4, 2024, the House Oversight Democrats’ staff report based its calculation on a subset of records produced by former Trump accounting firm Mazars. The records covered two years of Trump’s presidency and four of more than 500 businesses he owned. The report therefore describes a minimum within that limited documentary sample, not a comprehensive accounting of payments over his entire presidency.

The four properties named in the report were:

  • Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
  • Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas
  • Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York
  • Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York

The money was paid to businesses or properties Trump owned. The reported business receipts should not be treated as cash paid directly to Trump personally. Nor does the total establish how much the businesses kept as profit or how much, if any, ultimately enriched him personally.

China was the largest source in the reviewed records

The committee report counted $5,572,548 in payments involving China, making it the largest country source in the records it reviewed. It identified payments involving the Chinese Embassy, ICBC—a Chinese state-owned enterprise—and Hainan Airlines, which the report connected to HNA Group and the Hainan provincial government.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
#1 Best Overall
Sale
Trump: The Art of the Deal
  • Trump: The Art of the Deal

These were payments to Trump-owned businesses or properties, not a finding that those entities transferred the reported sum directly to Trump as personal income. The report also identified payments associated with 19 other governments. In the committee’s January 4, 2024 release, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin characterized the records as showing more than $5.5 million from the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned enterprises, along with millions from other governments, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia. That was Raskin’s description of the limited records, not a separate adjudication of the transactions.

Why another estimate is higher

CREW published a separate 2024 estimate of $13.6 million in likely benefits from foreign governments, including $5,730,430 attributed to China. Those figures are not competing totals calculated from an identical dataset: CREW used its own methodology and included categories it said the House report excluded.

Source and figure What it represents Scope qualification
House Oversight Democrats: at least $7.8 million from 20 governments Payments documented in the committee staff report Subset of Mazars records covering two years and four properties; reported as a minimum
House Oversight Democrats: $5,572,548 from China China-related payments counted in the committee report Same limited records and property coverage as the House total
CREW: $13.6 million in likely foreign-government benefits A separate estimate using CREW’s methodology Different scope and inclusion rules from the House report
CREW: $5,730,430 from China CREW’s China estimate CREW’s estimate, not the House report’s China total

These are estimates of payments or likely benefits associated with businesses—not established figures for net profit or personal enrichment. A higher estimate does not by itself show that the House staff report’s calculation was wrong; the sources count different things.

What the report says about the Constitution—and what courts decided

The staff report describes the payments as foreign emoluments and concludes that they violated the Constitution. That is the committee staff’s constitutional conclusion. The court record described in the available materials concerns the committee’s effort to obtain documents and the resulting litigation; it does not establish a final merits judgment that these transactions violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Support on Ko-Fi

What the company said it would do with foreign-government profits

In 2017, Trump Organization representatives announced that the company would identify foreign-government customers and donate profits from those payments to the U.S. Treasury. A bipartisan House committee then asked how the organization would identify such payments, calculate the profits, make and track donations, disclose them publicly, and address possible tax deductions.

A 2021 federal court opinion recounts a reported $151,470 payment to the Treasury in 2017 and says the organization declined to provide all responsive records identifying foreign sources of income. That account does not establish that the reported remittance fully covered foreign-government receipts. It also does not turn the partial records into a complete accounting of payments or profits.

Quick Recap

Rank #4

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

More post from the Money Desk

  1. The Money DeskBlogTheFinanceBase09 OCT 267 minMortgage Escrow FAQs: Taxes, Insurance, Shortages, and Refunds
  2. The Money DeskBlogTheFinanceBase09 OCT 265 minHow Mortgage Escrow Accounts Work and What Homeowners Pay For
  3. The Money DeskBlogTheFinanceBase09 OCT 265 minHow to Read a Stock Chart, Volume and Market-Cap Data
Recommended PC Tool
Recommended PC Tool
Crashes, No Sound, or Screen Glitches?Free driver scan
Windows Errors? Fix Them Before They SpreadFree repair scan

Two free Windows tools

One Free Minute Could Fix That PC

Before you go - each of these free tools takes about a minute and tackles what quietly slows a Windows PC down.

Special offer. View Outbyte info, uninstall instructions, EULA, and Privacy Policy.