Trump dreamed of his name on towers across former Soviet Union
NEW YORK -- Weeks before his inauguration, Donald Trump was allied with a company in the former Soviet republic of Georgia that planned to build a 47-story luxury tower in the Black Sea resort of Batumi.
The tower, nixed in early January, was to bear Trump’s name – in exchange for which he would receive royalties, as he does from similar arrangements around the world.
But the company, Silk Road Group, had business ties and relationships that could have been problematic for a sitting U.S. president. Over the years it had oil trading and transport deals with companies in both Russia and Iran, countries currently facing varying degrees of U.S. and European financial sanctions.
It was also a strategic fuel supplier to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and had partnered with a Kazakh bank whose former leader is accused of stealing billions and laundering some of it through luxury real estate in the United States, including Trump-branded condos.
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