Report: Trump Company Violated Rules With Cuba Business Dealings
One of Donald Trump's companies did business in Cuba in the late 1990s despite American bans against such dealings, Newsweek reported Thursday.
Citing documents and interviews with former Trump executives, Newsweek reported that the company spent at least $68,000 on a trip to the country, funneled through an American consulting firm, in 1998. At the time, corporations were prohibited from spending in the Fidel Castro-led country without a greenlight from the U.S. government.
More, from the story by Kurt Eichenwald:
At the time, Americans traveling to Cuba had to receive specific U.S. government permission, which was only granted for an extremely limited number of purposes, such as humanitarian efforts. Neither an American nor a company based in the United States could spend any cash in Cuba; instead a foreign charity or similar sponsoring entity needed to pay all expenses, including travel. Without obtaining a license from the federal Office of Foreign Asset Control before the consultants went to Cuba, the undertaking by Trump Hotels would have been in violation of federal law, trade experts say.
NBC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
It's worth noting that Trump's company was far from the only one flouting the travel ban to Cuba in the late '90s. At the time, the Clinton administration had cut off funding to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which was responsible for investigating apparent embargo violations.