When it comes to making big bucks, our president is all “do as I say, not as I do.”
by digby
I, for one, am shocked. Shocked!
Donald J. Trump has cast himself as the anti-globalist president.
But Donald Trump, the businessman, is a different story.
During the campaign, Mr. Trump’s organization continued to file dozens of new trademarks, in China, Canada, Mexico, the European Union and Indonesia, and one of his companies applied for trademark protection in the Philippines more than a month after the election, a review of foreign records by The New York Times showed.
His trademarks in recent years have covered all manner of potential products, including soap and perfume in India, engineering services in Brunei and vodka in Israel. Even last week, the government in China, where his companies have filed for at least 126 trademarks since 2005, announced it was granting Mr. Trump rights to protect his name brand for construction projects, affirming a decision made in November.
The contrast with his hard-line anti-globalism since taking office is stark. During his first weeks as president, Mr. Trump denounced China and Mexico for unfair trade practices and derided the European Union as “basically a vehicle for Germany.” He ended American involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sprawling trade pact with Asian nations, and said he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“Trump seems to be the archetypal businessman with mercantilist instincts,” Dani Rodrik, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, said in an email. “‘Open your market for me to do business in it, but you can have access to mine only on my terms.’”
The trademarks are the natural outgrowth of a global-spanning strategy. Like any businessman, Mr. Trump has long sought to protect his brand and products legally with trademarks, whether by registering a board game he once tried to sell, slogans like “Make America Great Again” or simply the name “Trump.”
But the trail of trademarks offers further clues to his international business ties, which leave the president vulnerable to potential conflicts of interest, or at least perception challenges. The Chinese government’s trademark announcement last week came just days after Mr. Trump retreated from challenging China’s policy on Taiwan in a call with China’s president, Xi Jinping.
The Times review of nine databases identified nearly 400 foreign trademarks registered to Trump companies since 2000 in 28 countries, among them New Zealand, Egypt and Russia, as well as the European Union. There are most likely many more trademarks, because there is no central repository of all trademarks from every country. The Trump Organization has been filing trademarks for decades, and has said that it has taken out trademarks in more than 80 countries.
I hate to do this because it’s so tediously common, but I can’t help it in this case. Just imagine if anyone but Trump were in this position. It’s mind-boggling that he can get away with this. He is corrupt. It is obvious. And his kids are carrying out his corrupt kleptocratic agenda on his behalf as he clearly does what’s necessary on the inside of the oval office.
I can’t even believe we’re talking about this.
Here’s a random collection of headlines I gathered on google in two minutes:
Trump’s Sons Heading To Dubai As Business Interests Continue To Expand Overseas
Eric Trump’s Business Trip To Uruguay Might Cost US Taxpayers Almost $100k
Trump sons will fly into Vancouver for posh, private opening of tower
American Tax Dollars Are Already Helping Trump Make Money
Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense
Politics is all dirty, we know that. And we know that all the politicians are corrupt on one level or another because of it.But this is something else, people. It’s not normal. And those who are insisting that some of us are being hysterical because Obama-Clinton-Kerry etc are just as bad are simply refusing to see hat’s in front of their faces. This is next level and it’s extremely dangerous.
Let’s see what happens when one of Trump’s properties gets attacked. He’s already convinced of “l’etat c;est moi.”
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