Because no quid is good without a sufficient pro quo, the New York Times is reporting that earlier this month “China awarded Ivanka Trump seven new trademarks across a broad collection of businesses,” “around the same time” as President Trump’s unexpectedly magnanimous treatment of Chinese telecommunications company ZTE.
The new trademarks bring the senior presidential advisor’s total to 34 in China (her father already owns more than 100 – apples falling from trees, and all that), and have raised speculation, given the timing of their ratification.
Filed in March and May of last year, the trademark applications covered things like “books, housewares and cushions,” and according to a statement from brand president, Abigail Klem, the protection of those trademarks was “in the normal course of business,” which would make the recent back-and-forth entirely coincidental.
And while experts did seem to agree that the timing itself wasn’t necessarily nefarious, one also conceded that “from application to registration, this is very fast,” and even the more favorable readings of the situation have a hard time separating Trump from her company’s trademark approvals.
“Some countries will no doubt see this as a way to curry favor with President Trump,” wrote Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, and Norman Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Other countries may see the business requests made by his daughter’s company as requests they cannot refuse.”
So is this on the same level as whatever boy wonder Jared has been cooking up in the Middle East? Probably not, but this family really never stops.
You can read more about it at The New York Times.
