Chinese bank staff offers wealthy clients chance to pay $150,000 to dine with Donald Trump

China and the US are in the midst of trade talks

Employees of China Construction Bank have offered wealthy clients a chance to pay $150,000 to dine with Donald Trump in Texas (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)

A Chinese bank has caught staff offering elite clients a chance to pay $150,000 to attend a dinner with US President Donald Trump and get their pictures with him.

The China Construction Bank’s (CCB) employees were circulating the invitation, which included the bank’s logo, on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. It invited their high net worth clients to a dinner on 31 May in Dallas, Texas where they could also meet American “tycoons,” the invitation said.

Mr Trump will be in Texas to host a Republican National Committee fundraising dinner that evening that costs $50,000 a plate - which meant the Chinese advertisement offered a ticket at three times the price. It is illegal for US political campaigns to accept contributions from non-US citizens or corporations. This means only the clients who hold US passports and willing to contribute in their own name would be eligible to attend the dinner or any similar events.

​CCB is China’s second-largest bank owned by the state and it was staff from one of the branches in Shenzen, China, who sent the invitations for dinner, photos, and autographs with the US leader out to their clients, Bloomberg News confirmed.

The RNC and the Trump 2020 campaign also told the outlet they had no knowledge of CCB's invitation. The campaign even said it had alerted US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to the advertisement, one source said. “We do not accept foreign donations of any kind,” a Trump campaign official who declined to be named said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Since it has been brought to our attention, we have notified the appropriate authority about this unauthorized flier," they said.

The Shenzen branch said outside organisers had promoted the offer to bank staff, who then promoted it on social media. It noted that the bank itself had no hand in planning or promoting the event and told Bloomberg News it would "strengthen internal management and marketing oversight," the outlet reported.

The bank also forwarded an email statement from VVISA, a Shanghai-based travel agency, which said it had helped the organisations offering the dinner package. Both VVISA and the bank staff in question would get commissions from the sale of the tickets to the dinner. "VVISA said the invitations were initiated by a U.S. foundation and a Chinese entrepreneurs group and assisted by VVISA, with no relation to Construction Bank. The event is still proceeding and VVISA is cooperating with many institutions, it said in the statement, adding that participants are paying on their own," Bloomberg reported.

The invitation comes at a crucial time in China-US trade relations as well. Mr Trump met with President Xi Jinping's trade advisory to discuss the upcoming negotiations and sticking points.

China also recently said it "greatly appreciates the positive US position on the ZTE issue" after US President Donald Trump said the US Commerce Department has been “instructed to get it done” to save jobs at China’s biggest telecommunications company, ZTE, which broke US sanctions laws with North Korea and Iran.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China welcomed the US president's efforts to help regain jobs for the telecommunications giant just ahead of the two countries' trade negotiations. Mr Trump tweeted on 13 March: "Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!" The White House later said it expected Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to make a decision about ZTE independently.

ZTE admitted to illegally selling equipment made with American components to Iran. This was even before Mr Trump’s decision that the US would no longer participate in the six-party Iran nuclear deal and renew and place even more sanctions on Tehran. The company also sold products to North Korea, which the US and United Nations have placed strict sanctions upon until it agrees to halt development on its nuclear programme.

Mr Ross said at the time that the company’s “egregious behaviour cannot be ignored” and again noted today that the company did violate US sanctions. In light of the president’s tweet, Mr Ross said that the sanctions on ZTE are an “enforcement action, separate from trade”.

However, he noted that his agency will “explore promptly alternative remedies” for ZTE to possibly re-enter the US market.