The release of six years of failed former president Donald Trump’s taxes by the House Ways and Means Committee makes it clear that while he was in the White House, the Trump Organization took millions from over a dozen foreign countries, including $6.5 million from China.
Politico reports that Trump had multiple conflicts of interest, and since he refused to place his assets into a blind trust, we may never know exactly how those millions from other nations may have impacted U.S. foreign policy in the Trump administration.
The six years of tax returns disclosed Friday show that Trump received extensive income from Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom — including gross business income of at least $35.3 million from Canada in 2017, the year he entered office.
That year, Trump also brought in $6.5 million from China, $5.8 million from Indonesia and $5.7 million from India.
By 2020, his last full year in office, Trump reported $8.8 million in income from the U.K. and another $3.9 million in Ireland.
Trump also stuck his snout into the U.S. Treasury by submitting outrageous bills for lodging and travel during his four years in office.
The former president was known for fusing his business interests with America’s highest public office, drawing allegations of using his role to promote his private resorts, direct federal money to his hotels and encourage foreign governments to spend money that would directly benefit the Trump family interests.
His far-flung concerns, foreign and domestic, are nested in more than 400 separate business entities. A 2019 report by the watchdog group OpenSecrets said he had more than $130 million in assets in more than 30 countries.
Additionally, the returns from 2015 to 2020 call into doubt Trump’s claims that he was donating his presidential salary of $400,00 a year to charity, according to The Independent:
Donald Trump donated nothing to the Department of Health and Human Services during the height of the pandemic, despite claiming publicly to have done so, his tax returns revealed on Friday.
The release of his returns came as the result of the end of a years-long legal battle between the now-former president and the House Ways and Means Committee, which released its final report this week after recently obtaining the returns when the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case.
The picture painted by the documents is crystal clear: Donald Trump claimed zero charitable donations throughout 2020, meaning that his tax burden was not reduced at all (at least in that regard). He would still go on to pay $0 in income tax for the year in total.
Trump’s taxes show what we’ve long suspected about him: He’s a grifter, a liar, a tax cheat, and a scumbag.
