Deeply in debt to Russia, Donald Trump may have only run for President to avoid bankruptcy

http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/deeply-in-debt-to-russians-donald-trump-may-only-be-running-for-president-to-avoid-bankruptcy/25398/

Since the revelation that the Russians may have hacked the Democratic Party email servers in order to try to sabotage the United States Presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, and his own son’s admission that he’s increasingly in debt to the Russians, it’s raised the question of whether Trump is anything more than a political and financial patsy of Vladimir Putin. It also raises the deeper question of whether Trump, whose debt load has exploded over the past year, may have only run for President in order to prevent his shaky empire from collapsing into bankruptcy.

It’s already been well documented that American banks are no longer willing (source: Wall Street Journal) to loan money to Donald Trump due to his pattern of strategically not paying his bills or repaying his debts when he thinks he can get away with it. And yet he’s managed to nearly double his debt load (source: Bloomberg) over the past year by borrowing a flurry of funds from overseas investors. Why have these foreign bankers been willing to make the risky move of loaning money to Trump if they know there’s a strong chance it won’t be paid back? The short answer is that they have been gambling that they were buying influence over the United States government if Trump became President.

That in turn calls into question why Donald Trump chose this election cycle to finally enter politics, after spending decades threatening to do so. Throughout the general election, he proved consistently unwilling to take the steps needed to broaden his appeal enough to compete for undecided voters, and instead seemed to be merely going through the motions of having snarky fun while remaining in the race until the end. Even though he ended up winning the Electoral College vote (barring a rebellious Electoral vote on December 19th), he ran such a lackadaisical campaign that he lost by nearly three million votes. That’s not a sign of someone who was looking to win. It’s a sign of someone who was just playing the part for other reasons.

Throw in the fact that Donald Trump spent the entire election refusing to release his tax returns to the public even after it caused him endless grief and distrust among voters, and it raises the question of just what he’s hiding. Is he far more in debt than we know? Has he been taking out these loans from foreign investors simply to cover for his existing deep debt so he can avoid yet another bankruptcy? Did he enter the race last year simply because he knew that it would make it easier for him to secure loans from foreigners? What happens if he now takes office, owing money to so many foreign governments and foreign investors?

Even if Donald Trump had lost this election, he’d have managed to milk his status as the Republican nominee to the tune of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in overseas loans. Unless he’s willing to release his tax returns and allow the American public to see what financial secrets he’s been hiding, just how deeply in debt he is, and how much of it he owes to the Russians among other hostile nations, it’s fair to ask if his entire campaign – and now would be presidency – has been one desperate long con aimed at keeping himself out of yet another bankruptcy. If you enjoy Daily News Bin, consider making a contribution: