According to records found by the New York attorney general’s office, Donald Trump neglected to disclose a $19.8 million loan from a business with ties to North Korea when he was president, Forbes reported on Sunday. Records show that Trump owed the money to L/P Daewoo both during his presidential campaign in 2016 and afterwards. According to Forbes, he failed to disclose the debt in financial disclosure documents, as candidates and presidents are required to do.
Just over five months into his presidency, the loan was paid off. According to Forbes, the documents don’t say who paid for it.
South Korean corporation Daewoo collaborated with Trump on various projects throughout the years, including a construction project close to the United Nations building in New York City. According to Forbes, the business has ties to North Korea and was the only South Korean company authorized to conduct business in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Because the loan was recorded on the books of his business, the Trump Organization, and was not designated as a personal loan, Forbes speculated that Trump may have avoided disclosure regulations while avoiding an outright violation.
Conflict of interest questions over an American president’s debt to a foreign operation that was susceptible to manipulation by North Korea’s despotic government would have been raised by the debt. Trump frequently waxed lyrical about his close friendship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Since the U.S. Office of Government Ethics lacks the resources and authority to investigate a president’s assets, such loans are typically reported on an honor system.
OGE has no way of knowing if someone is hiding a loan, according to Walter Shaub, who oversaw it when Trump assumed office. The system is kind of predicated upon people actually following a law because they want to follow the law,” Don Fox, who previously served as the office’s director, said to Forbes.
