The US$975,000 fine on Wheatland Tube is the largest ever levied by the Federal Election Commission for a foreign national contribution, and its third-largest overall
U.S. regulators have hit a Canadian steel magnate’s company with one of their largest election-related fines in history after he illegally helped orchestrate US$1.75-million in donations to a Donald Trump campaign group.
Under U.S. law, it is illegal for foreign nationals to make campaign contributions or take part in decisions by American companies to donate. The fine on Wheatland is the largest ever levied by the FEC for a foreign national contribution, and its third-largest overall. The donations came in the middle of a trade war between the U.S. and Canada, part of Mr. Trump’s protectionist push to help U.S. steel companies by keeping out foreign imports.Mr. Zekelman lobbied the Trump administration to impose steel tariffs on other countries, and also supported punitive trade action against Canada. On one occasion in 2018, Mr. Zekelman advocated for a crackdown on foreign imports directly to Mr. Trump over dinner at his Washington hotel.
“The magnitude of this penalty is unprecedented,” Campaign Legal Center vice-president Adav Noti said in an interview. “What the FEC is saying is that there is at least one area of law now that they are actually watching and enforcing. If you are a Super PAC and you take a foreign corporate contribution, you are taking significant risk.”In an e-mail, American First president Brian Walsh would not say whether the Super PAC would return Wheatland’s contributions or donate them to the Treasury.
“The key issue is not whether a U.S. citizen or national had final decision-making authority or final say regarding the making of the contribution or donation, but whether any foreign national directed, dictated, controlled, or directly or indirectly participated in a decision-making process in connection with election-related spending,” the commission wrote in its ruling.
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