Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
What if Russian businesses poured money into America’s Trump-friendly heartland? That was one of the ideas discussed when a key Donald Trump ally and a top Moscow financier met in the Seychelles in 2017. According to a memo summarizing the get-together, reviewed by The Daily Beast, Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Russia Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev chewed over the notion of Russian companies “mak[ing] investments with RDIF financing to serve the U.S. market in the Midwest, creating real jobs for hard hit area[s] with high employment.”
Trump made bringing back jobs to the Rust Belt a key campaign pledge, and notched unexpected wins in the region. As The Daily Beast’s Erin Banco and Betsy Woodruff note, “The memo is evidence that Russia was listening and proposing a way to help make Trump’s central campaign promise come true.”