Chitchat Trump's son-in-law sleeping with Chinese

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

The Donald Trump administration may show the world that America can do princelings profiting from political connections at least as well as China can.

The New York Times broke the story (Jared Kushner, a Trump In-Law and Adviser, Chases a Chinese Deal) that Jared Kushner, real estate mogul and son-in-law of President-elect Trump, has been working for several months on a Manhattan real estate deal with Anbang Insurance, and met with the Anbang Chairman after the presidential election:

On the night of Nov. 16, a group of executives gathered in a private dining room of the restaurant La Chine at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The table was laden with Chinese delicacies and $2,100 bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild. At one end sat Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of the Waldorf’s owner, Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese financial behemoth with estimated assets of $285 billion and an ownership structure shrouded in mystery. Close by sat Jared Kushner, a major New York real estate investor whose father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, had just been elected president of the United States.

It was a mutually auspicious moment.

Mr. Wu and Mr. Kushner — who is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and is one of his closest advisers — were nearing agreement on a joint venture in Manhattan: the redevelopment of 666 Fifth Avenue, the fading crown jewel of the Kushner family real-estate empire. Anbang, which has close ties to the Chinese state, has seen its aggressive efforts to buy up hotels in the United States slowed amid concerns raised by Obama administration officials who review foreign investments for national security risk.

Now, according to two people with knowledge of the get-together, Mr. Wu toasted Mr. Trump and declared his desire to meet the president-elect, whose ascension, he was sure, would be good for global business.

It is worse than a simple business conflict of interest. The report also reveals that Mr. Kushner is acting as the foreign policy gatekeeper to his father-in-law:

Indeed, despite a lack of foreign policy experience, Mr. Kushner is emerging as an important figure at a crucial moment for some of America’s most complicated diplomatic relationships. Such is his influence in the geopolitical realm that transition officials have told the Obama White House that foreign policy matters that need to be brought to Mr. Trump’s attention should be relayed through his son-in-law, according to a person close to the transition and a government official with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

So when the Chinese ambassador to the United States called the White House in early December to express what one official called China’s “deep displeasure” at Mr. Trump’s break with longstanding diplomatic tradition by speaking by phone with the president of Taiwan, the White House did not call the president-elect’s national security team. Instead, it relayed that information through Mr. Kushner, whose company was not only in the midst of discussions with Anbang but also has Chinese investors.

Beijing must be confused by the mixed signals coming from Trump world. On the one hand there are threats of sanctions and a trade war, and several personnel appointments to make those threats look real. On the other hand his son-in-law and top advisor is reliant on Chinese investors and still negotiating deals with them since the election.


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