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COVID-19: Struggling U.S. hotel owners target federal bailouts

Thomas J. Barrack Jr., the billionaire investor and major donor to U.S. President Donald Trump, has run into an unexpected patch of red ink thanks to the pandemic: He has struggled to keep up with payments on US$1.97 billion in Wall Street debt he used to buy a collection of more than 160 hotels. Monty Bennett, another big Trump donor, is in a similar tough spot after he recently halted payments owed on the US$2.6 billion worth of Wall Street debt used to acquire his own hotel collection. The precarious financial position that some friends of Trump and other hotel executives are now in has fueled an intense lobbying campaign aimed at persuading the Trump administration to rescue hundreds of hotel industry players that relied on riskier Wall Street debt to finance projects before the virus hit.

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