Comments by "" (@HUNDREDACREWOOD.) on "Trump Rally 10/23" video.

  1. EDUCATE YOURSELF STUPID China has been busy buying Trump properties since the election and has granted Trump a long-sought series of trademarks in the country—just days after Trump reversed his position on Taiwan. 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. 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.”
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