Teamsters blast Yellow, cite $700 million Covid loan firm got from Trump White House

Bankruptcy-bound trucking steadfast Yellow received a whopping $700 cardinal successful Covid pandemic alleviation loans 3 years agone aft Trump medication officials pushed for it contempt objections from the Defense Department.

Yellow has repaid conscionable $230 retired of the $729.2 cardinal successful main it inactive owes the U.S. Treasury for those loans, according to a authorities watchdog's report successful May. That azygous outgo was made successful June 2021.

The Teamsters Union, which represents Yellow workers, blasted the freight bearer successful a connection Sunday and highlighted the Covid loans.

"Yellow has historically proven that it could not negociate itself contempt billions of dollars successful idiosyncratic concessions and hundreds of millions successful bailout backing from the national government," Teamsters General President Sean M O'Brien said.

Yellow told unit connected Friday that it is wholly shutting down, which would enactment 30,000 workers retired of their jobs, and the Teamsters said the institution plans to record for bankruptcy.

When it does, it volition go the largest bankruptcy ever for a trucking firm.

A Yellow spokesperson did not instantly respond to a petition for remark from CNBC.

The Trump medication successful July 2020 approved the $700 cardinal successful loans to then-financially troubled Yellow, formerly known arsenic YRC Worldwide, nether the alleged CARES Act, which authorized specified for companies "critical to maintaining nationalist security."

At the clip the loans were made, they represented 95% of the full funds disbursed nether the CARES Act. The national authorities received a astir 30% involvement successful Yellow successful speech for the loans.

A House subcommittee successful April 2022 issued a scathing study connected the loans, saying they were extended to the institution contempt the appraisal by Defense Department officials that the institution was not "critical" to nationalist security.

The study said, "The loan's support progressive the involution of apical Trump Administration officials —potentially including the president," Donald Trump.

According to the report, documents amusement that Trump White House main of unit Mark Meadows planned to telephone Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin astir Yellow's petition for the loans successful May 2020.

"Secretary Mnuchin's communications corroborate President Trump's involvement successful the indebtedness approval," the subcommittee noted successful a connection astir the report.

"The greeting that Treasury announced the indebtedness to Yellow, Secretary Mnuchin sent Chief of Staff Meadows and the president's enforcement adjunct a CNN nonfiction reporting connected the indebtedness and highlighted that a national person thanked President Trump for the indebtedness — conscionable months earlier the 2020 statesmanlike election," the connection said.

At the clip the loans were made, the Department of Justice was suing Yellow for alleged fraud related to overcharges to the Defense Department for freight bearer services. The institution successful March 2022 agreed to wage astir $6.85 cardinal to settee that lawsuit.