Donald Trump could be fined $250m (£201.3m) and banned from owning real estate in New York for five years after a judge ruled that he and his associates inflated their assets by as much as $3.6bn (£2.9bn).
The former US president is expected to appear in court today after the pre-trial ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron last week, which came after a civil lawsuit was brought against him by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.
Trump’s lawyers – who are seeking clarity over the pre-trial ruling – have said that statements about the value of his assets were never relied on by the banks, which had never complained about being misled.
Sky News has gone through the court documents to show the main assets Trump listed – and the most up-to-date claims figure he’s claimed they are worth.
Golf clubs and related real estate
Trump’s total valuation: $1.7bn
Image: Donald Trump at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland
This figure relates to 12 golf and social clubs owned or leased by Trump, including his prized Mar-a-Lago estate.
The clubs, 10 of which are in the US and two in Scotland, make up by far the largest percentage of Trump’s net worth.
The district attorney said he lumps their numbers together when listing his assets in order to “conceal” any significant changes in value to individual clubs.
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He valued the clubs at their highest in 2018, claiming they were worth nearly $2.4bn.
Mar-a-Lago has been at the forefront of this case too, as the court ruled Trump had overvalued the Palm Beach club by as much as 2,300%, and that its actual worth was closer to $75m.
Trump Tower
Trump’s valuation: $806.7m
Image: Trump Tower in New York
Trump owns the commercial space in the iconic 58-storey building.
It’s been the headquarters of the Trump Organization since it opened in 1983 and has been a mainstay for Trump himself and some of his family members.
Ms James said the Trump Organization used tactics such as inflating income figures and adding favourable numbers from its projections in order to reach such high valuations.
Triplex apartment in Trump Tower
Trump’s valuation: $131m
That’s his valuation of the three-storey penthouse as of 2021 – but in 2015 and 2016, he had it at $327m.
The prosecutor labelled that valuation as “absurd”, and the court ruled Trump had reached that figure by pretending the property was three times bigger than its actual size.
40 Wall Street
Trump’s valuation: $663.6m
The 72-storey building was completed in 1930 and bought by the Trump Organization 25 years later.
The company claimed the tower was around $796.4m in 2016 – a valuation Ms James said could have been inflated by up to $473.9m.
Trump Park Avenue
Trump’s valuation: $135.8m (2020)
Image: Trump Park Avenue
The building near Central Park houses over 120 luxury apartments.
Trump’s valuations, which ranged from $90.9m and $350m between 2011 and 2021, only related to the commercial space and unsold residential units that he owns.
Ms James said the values of the unsold residential units were “false and misleading” because they ignored legal restrictions that would decrease property values.
Trump gave the units a $50m valuation in 2012, but, due to rent-pricing regulations that Ms James said he failed to take into account, they were actually meant to be valued collectively at just $750,000.
Seven Springs
Trump’s valuation: Between $261m and $291m (2011-2014)
He purchased this estate, which consists of two large homes, undeveloped land, and a few other buildings, in 1995 for a total of $7.5m.
The estate spans 212 acres across the towns of Bedford, North Castle and New Castle in New York.
Ms James focused on Trump’s valuations between 2011 and 2014 because from 2015 onwards, he moved the estate into the category ‘other assets’ – which we’ll get to later.
As for the 2011-2014 valuations, the attorney general said they were in “sharp contrast” to a bank’s $30m valuation in 2006.
This was put down to the Trump Organization factoring in the future sales of mansions it planned to build. “All of these values were a fiction,” she concluded.
1290 Avenue of Americas and 555 California
Trump’s valuation: $645m
Trump has a 30% stake in 1290 Avenue of Americas – a two million square foot skyscraper located in midtown Manhattan – and 555 California, a 52-storey building in San Francisco that is home to many high-profile tenants.
The remaining 70% is owned by the Vornado Realty Trust, which is not run by Trump.
The attorney general said Trump calculated the value of his shares without considering “the nature” of the agreement, causing the figures to be “false and misleading”.
The ‘other assets’
‘Other assets’ is a category Trump has used in all of his declarations, in which he sometimes includes more than a dozen different properties and assets.
Assets in this category include, depending on the year: aircraft, a management company, loans to Trump’s family members, and various homes in Palm Beach, Florida, Beverly Hills, California and the island of St Martin.
Ms James said Trump used ‘other assets’ in a similar way to his ‘golf clubs and related real estate’ category – grouping many items together and presenting a total figure so that he didn’t need to disclose the value of each asset individually.
She said the Triplex and Seven Springs were added to this category intermittently in attempts to “cover-up” when they dropped in value.
Between Trump’s 2014 and 2015 statements, for example, the ‘other assets’ category was reported to have increased in value by $219.6m after the Seven Springs property was grouped into it.
The court document did not share the overall value given for ‘other assets’ on any year.
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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5:07
The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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3:27
How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.
But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.
Power.
Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.
Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.
Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.
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0:58
PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.
More from US
But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.
Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.
This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.
It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.
The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.
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President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.
His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.
Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs
Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.
This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.
The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.
Image: Could America’s traditional allies turn to China? Pic: AP
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”
Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?
Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.
In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.
When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.
And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.
America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.