(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will host the Group of Seven finance ministers’ meeting in Philadelphia next year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mnuchin will meet his counterparts there in April, before the leaders’ summit that President Donald Trump will host in June. Philadelphia was chosen, the people said, because it offers multiple government venues for meetings and opportunities to explore American history, including Independence Hall, where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, and the Liberty Bell. There is also a branch of the U.S. Mint.
A Treasury spokesman didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Trump on Saturday dropped his plan to hold the leaders’ summit at his Trump National Doral golf resort near Miami after facing widespread criticism that he was using a major government event for personal gain. He has yet to name a new site for the leaders’ gathering.
Some of the criticism came from fellow Republicans, who were uncomfortable defending the president’s decision to spend taxpayer money at his financially struggling property.
The initial decision to hold the event at Doral was decried by government ethics experts as a blatant misuse of authority, and cited as the latest example that Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits U.S. officials from receiving payments or gifts from foreign governments.
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