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Pelosi: Trump's reported debts are national security issue

Monday, 28 September 2020 6:46 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 04 October 2020 11:23 AM ]

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) holds a weekly press conference at the Capitol on September 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has raised concerns about tax records of President Donald Trump that show he is under hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

Pelosi said on Monday the revelation that, in 2017, Trump paid only $750 in taxes to the US and over $300,000 to foreign countries is also a matter of concern.

She suggested this may represent a conflict of interest between Trump’s job as president and his business profits, if foreign countries are involved.

Pelosi said it was not clear who held the debts and if it involved different countries, which could hold leverage over the president: "To me this is a national security question."

The Republican president has so far refused to give his tax records to the congress. The new revelations were made by The New York Times.

The paper said Trump paid almost no taxes in the US in the 15 years leading to his presidency in 2016. It said the president also currently owes over $400 million to unknown creditors.

Trump reportedly paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, zero in 10 previous years

US President Donald Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and zero income taxes in ten of the previous 15 years, a new report reveals.

"In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750," said The New York Times in a report on Sunday. "As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed.”

It added that the information had been obtained through "tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office."

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