It seems that a week can’t go by without another account that exposes Donald Trump‘s decades of shady business practices. In a new report by Kurt Eichenwald, the Republican presidential nominee (who has already been exposed for outsourcing the manufacturing for his clothing brands) gets called out for sourcing the raw materials for his buildings from Chinese companies. A Newsweek investigation found “that in at least two of Trump’s last three construction projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
According to Newsweek, raw materials used to build the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas and Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago were both sourced from China. In the case of his Las Vegas hotel and casino, which opened in 2008, Trump routed steel from Chinese suppliers through “layers upon layers of corporate shells and divisions.” For his Chicago hotel, which opened a year later, Trump bought aluminum from a Chinese manufacturer and similarly obscured the material’s source. Based on conservative estimates, American companies “lost out on more than $350 million in sales” on the Republican presidential nominee’s Chicago hotel alone.
Eichenwald is quick to point out that Trump didn’t commit any crimes here, “nor did he engage in wrongdoing by using Chinese textile factories to make his clothing lines.” However, “Given the only beneficiaries of his decisions to go with cheaper Chinese metals for his construction project are Trump and his family, he is not someone who ever attempted to lead by example by only buying products made in America.”
(Via Newsweek)
