Trump should reopen the 1947 agreement locating its headquarters. It was a terrible real-estate deal.
President Trump has bemoaned the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty, which gave away strategic American territory. But what may be the federal government’s worst real estate deal of all time involved land in Mr. Trump’s front yard. The United Nations Headquarters Agreement of 1947 gave the U.N. a tax-free, quasi-extraterritorial 18-acre domain overlooking the East River in Midtown Manhattan. The Trump World Tower is right across First Avenue.
The U.S. offered to host the newly created U.N. after World War II amid a wave of optimism about the organization’s ability to prevent future wars. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land, and the headquarters was built with an interest-free loan from Washington that would be worth $861 million in today’s dollars.
