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Billionaire Cuban-American developer Jorge Perez, a friend and business associate of US President Donald Trump for two decades, told EFE here Thursday that he does not expect the former reality television star to remain in office very long. Photo: EFE…

Latino mogul who rejected Cabinet job says Trump presidency won't last long

Billionaire Cuban-American developer Jorge Perez, a friend and business associate of US President Donald Trump for two decades, told EFE here Thursday that he…

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Billionaire Cuban-American developer Jorge Perez, a friend and business associate of US President Donald Trump for two decades, told EFE here Thursday that he does not expect the former reality television star to remain in office very long.

"If Trump remains on a bad course, they will remove him, there will be an impeachment or something like that," Perez said during a conversation in one of Mexico City's most exclusive hotels.

That is what has made the United States what it is: immigrants eager to work and to create a new life

The institutions of the United States "are so strong, with so much history, that a president cannot destroy them," he said, revealing that he rejected an offer to serve as housing secretary in the Trump administration because of the "stupidity" of the new president's plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Perez, 67, was born in Argentina to Cuban parents while his father, a pharmaceutical executive, was in Buenos Aires on assignment.

They returned to Cuba, but left again after the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, emigrating to Colombia.

Perez came to the US for college and eventually settled in Miami, working as an urban planner until he joined New York-based developer Stephen Ross to form the Related Group of Florida, which came to dominate the market for luxury condominiums in the Magic City.

With an estimated fortune of $2.8 billion, Perez is ranked 495th on Forbes magazine's wealth list. Trump, at $4.5 billion, is No. 324.

The Related Group has been part of five Trump Towers projects in the United States.

"We were very good friends during two decades," Perez said of his personal ties to Trump. "We went to golf tournaments. He always invited me to his Miss Universe pageants. We always got along very well."

Their friendship prompted Trump to offer Perez the Cabinet post, as well as a chance to help build the border wall.

For Perez, the idea of the wall "remains a stupidity."

"With the problems the United States has of poverty, public health, homelessness, spending billions of dollars on a wall is madness," he said.

A wall won't stop hungry people who want to seek better jobs

Besides being "immoral," the plan for the wall emerges from "a very superficial and absurd discourse" as "a wall won't stop hungry people who want to seek better jobs," Perez said.

"That is what has made the United States what it is: immigrants eager to work and to create a new life," he said.

Perez expressed concern that his own real estate interests in the US could be hurt by Trump's evident hostility toward Mexico and Latin America.

"In Miami, 80 percent of our condominium buyers are from Latin America. For a Latin American not to feel welcome in Miami will be a very big negative," he said.

"If we re-create an animosity, a coldness between the countries of the north and the south, it will suit nobody, especially businessmen," Perez said.

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