Base Group, the lead investor in South Korean aluminum producer Korea Aluminium, paid President Donald Trump’s holding company $2 million last year while its subsidiary fought Commerce Department penalties, according to Trump’s annual financial disclosure and an original investigation by the New York Times.
Korea Aluminium faces accusations that it routed Chinese-made aluminum through South Korea to dodge US tariffs on Chinese metal. The Commerce Department found evidence of the practice in 2023, and the company has since cut its US exports sharply. A preliminary review last week sided with American aluminum producers pushing for tougher penalties, with a final determination still pending before the same administration Trump leads.
Trump’s late-June disclosure form described the $2 million only as a “nonrefundable development fee” tied to a “letter of intent,” without further explanation. Base Group and the Trump Organization told the Times the payment relates to an unannounced golf course project in South Korea and has nothing to do with the trade case. Trump Organization chief legal officer Alan Garten called any other explanation “pure fiction.”
Base Group has cultivated ties to the Trump family for nearly ten years. Its affiliate exclusively distributes Trump-branded wine in South Korea, and the company hosted Eric Trump at its Seoul headquarters in February, where executives discussed expanding trade between South Korea and the United States.
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The Times reported it found no evidence that Trump or his family members intervened with US officials on behalf of Base Group or Korea Aluminium. A White House spokesperson said the administration’s trade decisions rest solely on American interests and denied any conflict.
The Base Group payment is a small piece of at least $125 million Trump’s holding company collected last year directly from foreign sources across more than a dozen countries, including Britain, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Oman, the Philippines and Qatar. That sum sits well below the roughly $1.4 billion Trump reported in cryptocurrency-related income over the same period, but it stands out because it flows from foreign business partners rather than US markets.
Trump now maintains close to 30 active ventures with foreign partners, a scale of financial entanglement that has, as far as historians know, no precedent among modern American presidents. Prior presidents largely avoided even the appearance of conflict.
George W. Bush sold his stake in the Texas Rangers before running for president, Ronald Reagan liquidated his stock holdings on taking office, and Calvin Coolidge reportedly went as far as to avoid owning a home to sidestep any hint of self-dealing.
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“I never encountered anything like this,” Peter Wallison, who served as White House counsel and at the Treasury Department under Reagan, told the Times.
Trump has not placed his business holdings in a blind trust, unlike his predecessors. The Trump Organization says his sons now run daily operations.
