President Donald Trump during a press conference following his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, June 12, 2018.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Donald Trump owed $19.8 million to South Korean firm Daewoo while president, according to Forbes.
The firm has historic ties to North Korea.
Trump repaid the loan five months into his presidency, the report said.
Former President Donald Trump owed $19.8 million to South Korean conglomerate Daewoo while serving as president, Forbes reported.
Documents obtained by the New York attorney general’s office, and shared with Forbes, showed that Trump had a previously unreported liability to South Korean company Daewoo when he took office in January 2017.
According to the report, the sum was paid back five months after Trump became president, but he did not list the debt in financial disclosure filings while running for office in 2016.
Trump acted with some urgency to pay off the debt after becoming president, Forbes said, after the debt remained more or less static between 2011 and 2016.
Trump may not have acted illegally in not disclosing the debt, with candidates only required to list personal liabilities, not all of those held by companies they own.
But the debt would have sparked conflict of interest concerns.
Daewoo was the only South Korean company allowed to operate in North Korea during the 1990s.
Insider has contacted Trump’s office for comment.
Trump’s ties with Daewoo go back to 1997, when he partnered with the firm to build the Trump World Tower near the United Nations building in New York City.
The debt stemmed from “an agreement Trump struck to share some of his licensing fees with Daewoo,” Forbes reported.
Daewoo used Trump’s name on six buildings it constructed in South Korea, and loaned Trump a total of $24 million for business projects in Saint Vincent, the Grenadines, Brazil, Florida, Arizona, Canada, and Chicago.
Trump frequently bragged about his close relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un while president, and held two summits with the leader. But the meetings resulted in no significant diplomatic concessions, and North Korea has continued to develop its weapons programs and threaten its neighbors with missiles.
On Monday, a jury in New York began its deliberations in a trial in which Trump’s umbrella company, the Trump Organization, is accused of evading taxes by gifting employees valuable perks in lieu of salary.