What is Trump's history with Panama? Threats, money laundering allegations and hotel battle

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Donald Trump shook North American diplomatic relations this weekend by threatening to take back the Panama Canal, two and a half decades after the United States transferred control of the vital global trade route to Panama.

In a series of posts on Truth Social, the president-elect accused the country of ripping off the United States.

Our Navy and commerce have been treated very unfairly and misguidedly, Trump wrote. The fees Panama charges are ridiculous, especially considering the extraordinary generosity extended to Panama by the United States.

Panamanian officials have pushed back against these threats, with President Jos Ral Mulino saying in a statement on Sunday that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belongs to Panama and will continue to do so.

The conflict over the canal is just the latest chapter in Trump's drama in Panama.

Before and throughout his first term in the White House, a high-profile Trump hotel project in the country was a seemingly endless source of scandals and financial problems, ranging from a partner's bankruptcy to money laundering allegations. money through long legal battles.

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Trump threatened to renege on treaty and reassert US control over 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 towered over Panama City and the Trump Organization itself .

The tower, first designed in 2005, was Trump's first international hotel venture and one of the tallest buildings in Latin America.

Trump's capital was not spent on building the development itself, but the tower used the Trump name for branding, and companies controlled by the Trump Organization would manage the property, which contained a casino, hotel rooms and condos.

Even at first, the project seemed doomed to failure, with one of Trump's partners defaulting on its debts shortly after the tower opened and subsequently filing for bankruptcy.

Ricardo Martinelli, Panama's president at the time of the opening, has since been convicted of money laundering and has taken refuge inside the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama.

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Trump opened his first international hotel business in 2011 in Panama City with the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower (AFP/Getty)

Subsequent media investigations revealed that one of the main brokers who sold the tower units, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, met several times with Ivanka Trump while working on the project and did business with prominent people organized crime who may have used the properties for money laundering purposes. , earning the tower the nickname Narco-a-Lago, a play on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The Trump Organization was not the owner, developer or seller of the Trump Ocean Club Panama project, the Trump Organization said after the money laundering allegations. Due to its limited role, the company was not responsible for financing the project and was not involved in the sale of the units or the retention of real estate brokers.

The company told Reuters it never had a contractual relationship or any significant transactions with Nogueira.

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Trump then fought for control of the Panama City tower with a developer who bought the majority of the units (Wikipedia)

Nogueira fled Panama on bail while awaiting trial on unrelated fraud charges, and spoke to reporters as a fugitive in disguise in Europe.

At one point, Ocean Club condo owners opposed the Trump team's management practices and sought to fire the company, accusing them of excessive spending and accepting excessive bonuses. Trump responded by filing a lawsuit, demanding $75 million for wrongful termination.

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A key broker in the Trump Panama project may have sold units to organized crime figures who used their properties as vehicles to launder money (Getty)

The dispute was settled in 2016, the same year Trump was elected president, but the drama around the tower didn't end there.

President Trump walked away from his multibillion-dollar real estate empire to run for office and gave up his government salary, becoming the first president to lose his net worth while in the White House, Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump-Vance party. transition team, told The Independent in a statement. Unlike most politicians, President Trump did not enter politics for profit. He fights because he loves the people of this country and wants to make America great again.

In 2017, businessman Orestes Fintiklis purchased hundreds of units inside the hotel-condo portion of the building for between $20 million and $25 million from one of the tower's bankrupt developers, making him the majority owner. He helped the building's major unit owners call to sever their relationships with the Trump companies that manage the development.

The Trump Organization accused Fintiklis of violating the terms of its initial acquisition agreements for the units, saying he agreed not to interfere in the Trump team's management of the hotel.

The following year, as Fintiklis sought to assume what he saw as majority ownership of the tower, scuffles broke out between his employees and the rest of the Trump Organization staff. In one incident, the Trump team allegedly barred the new owners from entering a room equipped with computer servers and video surveillance monitors, prompting the owners' group to cut off the power to the room.

Panamanian president accuses Trump of trying to take credit for building the Panama Canal

Fintiklis accused the Trump Companies of shredding documents and hastily building walls to prevent new owners from accessing certain areas, while the Trump Organization accused the Fintiklis Group of using thug and mob tactics .

In a 2018 complaint filed in New York federal court and amended several times since, Fintiklis and his firm Ithaca Capital Partners accused the Trump companies managing the Panama Tower of intentionally evading taxes related to their oversight role. development, would have imposed millions of dollars on the new owners. liability when a purported 2018 audit revealed the deficit, according to the suit.

Subsequent documents accused Trump executives of understating employee salaries to reduce potential Social Security tax payments and misrepresenting the building's finances before the Fintiklis buyout, which which the company denied and called completely false.

To the extent that any taxes had to be withheld, the Trump Organization told the New York Times in 2019, they were the responsibility of the new owners, the company said. The Trump Organization added that it had not evaded any taxes.

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Trump's name has since been torn off the sign outside Panama's flagship project.

The complaints also accused the Trump Companies of mismanaging the tower and allowing it to fall into disrepair while the skyscraper's wings were virtually empty.

At the time, the Trump Organization said the fight had nothing to do with the president of the United States.

A Panamanian court ultimately ruled in favor of Fintiklis in the ownership dispute, and a worker removed Trump's silver name from the sign outside the Panama Tower in 2018.

Ithaca appears to have dropped its lawsuit against the Trump Companies in 2021, according to federal court records viewed by The Independent.

The Independent has contacted Ithaca and the Trump Organization for comment.

The tower is now a JW Marriott, but Trump's name clearly won't be making headlines in Panama anytime soon.

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