Here is why Trump has it in for Panama

[cyclonefence]

Revenge, as usual:


Before and throughout his first term in the White House, a high-profile Trump hotel project in the country was a seemingly unending source of scandal and financial problems, ranging from a partner’s bankruptcy to money-laundering allegations to long-running legal battles.
Trump has threatened to go back on a treaty and reassert US control over the Panama Canal
Trump has threatened to go back on a treaty and reassert US control over the Panama Canal (AP)

In 2011, Trump and his business partners cut the ribbon on the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower, a 70-story, sail-shaped skyscraper that loomed large over Panama City and the Trump Organization itself.


Subsequent investigations from news outlets alleged that one of the main brokers who sold units in the tower, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, met repeatedly with Ivanka Trump while working on the project and did business with organized crime figures who may have used the properties for money-laundering, earning the tower the nickname “Narco-a-Lago,” a play on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-panama-canal-hotel-lawsuit-history-b2669911.html

Read the whole article. Fascinating.

[Unladen Swallow]

1. Monroe Doctrine

[malaise]

2. Ding ding we have a winner

Rec
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/trump-panama-hotel-standoff-loses-physical-control

Executives with Donald Trump’s family hotel business have abandoned the management offices of a luxury hotel in Panama that has been the scene of a tense 12-day standoff over a business dispute with the hotel’s owners. Trump’s security guards also left the property.

It took place as a Panamanian judicial official and armed police escorted into the offices the owner of most of the units of the 70-storey, Trump-branded hotel in Panama City.

The legal dispute involving Trump’s company was expected to continue, but Monday’s developments meant that Trump had effectively surrendered physical control of the property.

“This was purely a commercial dispute that just spun out of control,” said Orestes Fintiklis, a private equity investor and the head of the hotel’s owners’ association, shortly before entering the hotel management’s offices. “And today this dispute has been settled by the authorities and the judges of this country.”

More at link

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Trump Companies Accused of Tax Evasion in Panama

This is a typical trump stunt. Panama dared to enforce the law against this asshole and now trump wants to go to war.

Link to tweet

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-companies-accused-tax-evasion-panama

The owners of a 70-story Panama City hotel tower formerly managed by President Donald Trump’s companies are accusing them of stiffing the Panamanian government.

In a legal filing Monday in an ongoing lawsuit in Manhattan federal court, private equity manager Orestes Fintiklis and the company he leads, Ithaca Capital Partners, claimed that two Trump companies failed to pay Panamanian taxes equal to 12.5% of the management fees they drew from the hotel.

The Trump entities were allegedly supposed to withhold those fees in advance and pay them to the government regardless of whether the property was profitable or not. Instead, the Trump companies simply kept the money, the suit claims, “thus intentionally evading taxes.” That and other financial irregularities exposed Fintiklis and the companies he represents “to millions of dollars in liability,” according to the suit, which also claims Trump companies sought to cover up their actions. The filing does not say whether a tax penalty has been levied by Panamanian authorities.......

Trump’s company tried unsuccessfully to convince Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela to intervene on Trump’s behalf. When Fintiklis’ group eventually took control, it found walls had been hastily built to obstruct access to certain areas — one was in the middle of a hallway, another in front of an elevator bank — including inner offices. Trump employees also shredded hotel documents, Fintiklis’ group alleged.