Trump Reaches Deep Into Russia, China For Financial Rescue
At a time when trump is being squeezed mightily to pay more than a half billion dollars in court ordered penalties, and at the same time running a very expensive re-election campaign, he has turned to two wealthy America oligarchs with connections in Russia and China.
Trump’s dealings have again come into question on two significant issues. One involves the $91.6 million penalties that trump owes to freelance writer, E. Jean Carroll and the second centers around trump’s flip flop on the issue of banning from operating in the U.S., the global, China-based social networking site, Tik Tok.
Trump has turned to an associate and billionaire, CEO of a global, multi-national insurance giant that does extensive business in Russia, to post a bond for the $91.6 million. He must still find someone or some body to secure a separate, $454 million bond for his New York civil fraud conviction. And there are still 68 more criminal charges facing trump, who, if he is found guilty, will likely be fined millions more and possibly go to jail.
Trump has been ordered to pay $91.6 million to Carroll after he was found guilty in a civil court of defaming the writer and denying that he sexually assaulted her in the rest room of a posh New York City clothing store more than a decade ago. The bond was posted just before a deadline that would have required trump to pay a $83.3 million penalty on top of the $91.6 million. The bond ensures that Carroll cannot move to seize trump’s assets during the lengthy appeals process.
The $91.6 million bond was guaranteed by Chubb Ltd., whose chief executive officer is Evan G. Greenberg, a former trump appointee to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, a nonprofit organization and advisory body founded in 1966 to encourage understanding and cooperation between the United States and China. Greenberg also is a representative on the US-China Business Council (USCBC), a nonprofit organization tasked with promoting trade between the U.S. and China.
It was not clear how much the bond will cost trump. But typically, the bond insurer charges around 10 percent of the penalty in cash, or in trump’s case, $9.16 million. If he can find a company to post the $454 million bond, it will cost him around $45.4 million. If he can’t, the government can begin seizing assets from Trump Plaza apartment and retail center in New York City to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
Through Chubb Ltd., Trump has posted an appeal bond to delay him from making the full $91.6 million payment while the appeal process continues. The bond is a financial guarantee or collateral that trump will pay the full penalty at some point. The bond is being handled by Chubb’s subsidiary, Federal Insurance Co. If trump defaults, Chubb would be responsible for paying the total penalty.
Chubb Ltd. is a Swiss-incorporated holding company that oversees the Chubb Group of Companies that serves global insurance and reinsurance through various subsidiaries. Chubb Ltd. is the parent company of Chubb Insurance Company of Russia, a part of the Chubb Group which offers tailor-made insurance products to Russian clients. The products are secured by Chubb Group and cater to clients with risk management programs that require a western insurance product.
Chubb’s involvement extends beyond insurance in Russia. The company has been insuring oil and gas extraction and transport in Russia, which has drawn attention because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chubb has said its Russian oil and gas operations are “one of the most promising activities” in the company’s Russian operations.
The environmental nonprofit group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) reported that Chubb was backing Nord Stream 2, a massive, natural gas pipeline built by Gazprom, the world’s largest producer of gas and a majority Russian state-owned fossil fuel company.
Chubb Ltd. provides insurance products covering property and casualty, accident and health, reinsurance, and life insurance and is the largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company in the world. Chubb Ltd. operates in 55 countries and territories and in 2018, had $174 billion in assets, $30.8 billion of gross written premiums and around 31,000 employees.
In July 2015, ACE (American Casualty Excess) Limited announced that it would acquire the original Chubb Corporation for $28.3 billion in cash and stock. The combined company adopted the Chubb name in January 2016 after the acquisition was completed.
Greenberg became president and CEO of Ace Ltd. in 2004. That year, ACE was investigated by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for participating in a bid rigging and price fixing scheme with insurance broker Marsh & McLennan. As part of an $80 million settlement, ACE they acknowledged their prior conduct and agreed to alter their business practices. Greenberg admitted no fault in Spitzer’s allegations although a junior executive did plead guilty to criminal charges. The Spitzer investigations also triggered civil litigation by policyholders who claim they were victimized by the bid rigging and commission schemes.
Greenberg’s father is Maurice Greenberg, the former chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG), and an influential representative of the U.S. in China. AIG is the 87th largest public company in the world and as of 2022, had $76.9 billion in shareholder equity.
Evan Greenberg’s younger brother is Jeffrey Greenberg, former CEO of insurance giant, Marsh & McLennan. In July 2017, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. was ranked first in Business Insurance’s world’s largest brokers list.
The National Committee on United States China Relations (NCUSCR) is a nonprofit organization and advisory body founded in 1966 to encourage understanding and cooperation between the United States and China. The US-China Business Council (USCBC) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is promoting trade between the U.S. and China. It comprises around 200 American companies that trade and do business with China.
Regarding TikTok, many members in Congress remain wary of the multi-billion dollar, Chinese-based, social network site fearing the company spies on Americans and will transfer personal information to the Chinese government. Tik Tok has 170 million monthly active users in the U.S.
The majority owner of TikTok is ByteDance Ltd. Founded in 2012, ByteDance is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. ByteDance developed the video-sharing social networking services and apps TikTok and Chinese-specific counterpart Douyin. The company is also the developer of the news platform Toutiao. As of June 2021, ByteDance hosted 1.9 billion monthly active users across all of its platforms.
ByteDance is backed financially by Jeff Yass’ Susquehanna International Group; investment behemoth, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts; SoftBank Group, Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, and Hillhouse Capital Group. As of March 2021, ByteDance was estimated to be valued at $250 billion in private trades.
While president, trump said he was concerned that TikTok could compromise American’s security. Trump had previously fought to kick TikTok out of the U.S., citing fears the company will provide China with personal information on tens of millions of Americans. On Aug. 3, 2020, trump ordered TikTok to be sold within 45 days or be effectively banned in the country. The order was blocked by legal challenges.
TikTok is banned on government-owned devices because of national security concerns over the Beijing links of ByteDance. The Biden administration uses separate, non-government-issued phones to ensure security on the app.
In May 2023, Montana became the first state to ban TikTok. Seven months later a federal judge issued a preliminary ruling and blocked the Montana law, stating the ban “oversteps state power” and “likely violates the First Amendment.”
At one time, ByteDance was close to a deal to sell its stake in TikTok to WalMart and Oracle, a cloud computing company whose executives had ties Trump. The acquisition was never completed. Under the plan, Walmart and Oracle would pay a combined $12 billion for their stake in TikTok Global.
Oracle is a database-software giant whose co-founder, Larry Ellison, is one of trump’s most prominent supporters in the technology industry. Oracle CEO Safra Catz and chief lobbyist Ken Glueck were members of the 2016 trump administration’s transition teams to devise plans around trade deals, the tax code, and government contracts.
In February 2020, trump held a fundraiser at Ellison’s estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif. where attendees paid $100,000 to play golf and take a photo with trump. For $250,000, visitors could participate in a roundtable discussion with trump.
On March 12, the House of Representatives voted for a Tik Tok ban which will go into effect if ByteDance, its Chinese owner, does not sell its stake or remove the Tik Tok app from stores. President Biden said he will sign the bill if it is approved by the Senate.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party, said that “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the committee’s Democratic co-chair, said TikTok “poses critical threats to our national security” as long as it is owned by ByteDance.
On March 8, trump said he had changed his mind and was strongly against the bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok. His change of heart came days after he met in February with Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor and billionaire investor with a 15 percent stake in ByteDance.
Forbes lists Yass’s net worth at $27.6 billion, making him the 28th richest person on the planet. A former professional gambler, the 65-year-old Yass is a cofounder of Susquehanna International Group, one of Wall Street’s largest and most successful trading firms.
Trump posted on March 8 on his Truth Social social network site, that banning TikTok would benefit Facebook and its owner, Mark Zuckerberg, who trump called, “Zuckerschmuck.” Trump has had a longstanding enmity toward Facebook and its parent, Meta, that also owns the Washington Post, a frequent trump critic. Trump also was barred from Facebook the day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by trump supporters. He was reinstated to Facebook early last year.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” trump said. “I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok but the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”
Trump said Facebook was an “enemy of the people” because it had helped with the administration of state and local election offices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A week before trump said he no longer wanted to upend Tik Tok, he praised Yass at the Republican Club for Growth retreat at the Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump described Yass as “fantastic” and expressed their renewed relationship after a period of disagreement. Yass’s support could potentially be a major financial boost to trump’s presidential campaign. Yass donated $10 million to the Club for Growth in 2023 as the group searched for a replacement for trump on the GOP ticket. The Club for Growth has donated more than $60 million to Republicans since 2010. Trump is expecting a significant donation from Yass to one of the outside groups backing the former president.
Trump also met this month with the world’s second-richest man, Elon Musk.
Yass and his allies have launched an intense lobbying effort to keep Tik Tok in the U.S. They have hired at least two former trump officials, U.S. Treasury official Tony Sayegh and former trump White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, to lobby against the TikTok bill in Congress. David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth also has been meeting with members of Congress about the issue. TikTok and ByteDance nearly doubled their lobbying in 2023, spending a combined $4.4 million more into the nation’s capital compared to the previous year.
The vice president of Tik Tok is Michael Beckerman, who leads its government relations office in Washington, DC. Prior to his appointment, he served for 12 years as the deputy staff director and chief policy advisor to the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees America’s internet policies.
The Club for Growth, formed in 1999, is a conservative organization that focuses on tax cuts and other economic policy issues. Its largest funders are Yates and Richard Uihlein.
Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, are founders of Uline, an international shipping conglomerate. Richard Uihlein is also an heir to the Schlitz brewing fortune. Richard Uihlein was a major financial backer for the rally that preceded the January 6 attack on the Capitol by trump supporters. He is also the biggest donor to Women Speak Out PAC, a group seeking a federal abortion ban. Uihlein has donated millions to Restoration PAC, which promotes “all marriage is for one man and one woman for life.”
During the 2022 midterm elections, Richard Uihlein contributed more than $80.7 million to Republicans and Republican aligned groups.
During the 2022 election cycle, the Uihleins were the largest donors to far right wing, Republican Doug Mastriano’s 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign, and also contributed to the doomed Georgia senate campaign of Herschel Walker. They have supported other far right lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt; former Georgia Rep. Jody Hice; and former Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.
The Club for Growth has supported the campaigns of 42 rightwing Republicans senators and members of the House of Representatives who voted to challenge the 2020 presidential election results. The club doled out an estimated $20 million to directly and indirectly support campaigns in 2018 and 2020.
The Club for Growth’s biggest beneficiaries were Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, two Republican senators who led the effort to invalidate Biden’s electoral victory, and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.