WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has invested in some of the companies that he uses as punching bags on the campaign trail, according to new financial documents he submitted to the U.S. government.
In his 104-page public financial disclosure report, the presumptive Republican nominee reported holding investments in companies like Ford Motor Co., Apple Inc. and the parent company of the maker of Oreo cookies — all businesses that he’s assailed for outsourcing or, in Apple’s case, not agreeing to crack into iPhones for police or federal law enforcement in criminal cases. Trump also has invested in other companies that have outsourced jobs but escaped his public shaming.
One of Trump’s main talking points during his campaign rallies is that as president he would stop the outflow of American jobs. He often calls out companies and their products by name. The investments make up only a tiny fraction of Trump’s reported net worth, and a comparison with his previous filings show he’s reduced his holdings in some of the companies he targets.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to emailed questions about his investments in companies that have recently outsourced jobs. The campaign also did not return a phone message from The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“I love Oreos. I will never eat them again,” Trump said in August after Nabisco announced it was laying off 600 bakery workers in Chicago and building a new facility in Mexico. Trump reported between $5,000 and $15,000 in interest income from a now-sold investment in Nabisco’s parent company.
“Who do they think they are?” Trump said of Apple in February, when the company balked at hacking an iPhone used by one of the two people in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. More recently, Trump pledged to make Apple “build their damn computers and things in this country.” Trump holds multiple investments in Apple, which combined are worth between $1.1 million and $2.25 million.
“We’re going to tax you when those air conditioners come,” Trump said in February of air conditioner manufacturer Carrier Corp., whose parent company United Technologies Corp. relocated 1,400 jobs to Monterrey, Mexico. Trump no longer owns stock in the company, but he earned between $2,500 and $5,000 in interest income from a sold investment.
In March, Trump blasted Disney for its “outrageous practices” in requiring 250 Florida workers to train their foreign replacements before being laid off. Trump owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in Disney stock.
In April, Trump called Ford’s plans to open a $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico “an absolute disgrace,” and threatened to impose a 35 percent tax on imported Ford vehicles. In his personal financial disclosures, Trump reports investments in Ford Motor Credit Co. worth between $500,000 and $1 million.
Trump so far hasn’t attacked all the companies he listed on his financial records that have outsourced jobs. Trump listed investments in V F Corp. and Thermo Fisher Scientific, both of which moved jobs out of the U.S. in high-profile outsourcing deals last year.
But Trump has put the others on notice.
“Carrier and Ford and Nabisco need to know that there are consequences to leaving and firing people,” Trump said at a rally in Evansville, Indiana, last month. “You can’t just go to another country and make products to sell across our weak borders.”
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We can shake our heads at the blatant hypocrisy - it should be enough to force him to withdraw from the race. BUT his supporters, who brag that Trump “tells it like it is,” won’t care.
from December 2015