Trump Hotel Partner Lobbied WH On Trade With Turkey

Courthouse News reports:

Three White House cabinet members received pitches last week to dramatically increase trade with Turkey. Capitalizing on the coronavirus pandemic, the letters came from Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ, the chairman of Turkey’s oldest state-sponsored trade group who partnered with Ivanka Trump and the president on the Trump Towers Istanbul deal.

“Well before Covid-19 and the new set of economic and partnership needs created by this crisis, President Trump and President Erdogan spoke in November 2019 of expanding annual trade between our countries to $100 billion dollars,” Yalçındağ wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue on May 20.

For Yalçındağ, the pandemic provided an opportunity to pitch Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on turning to Turkey for personal protective equipment, efforts he said were already underway.

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