OEMs ‘not impacted’ by Ivanka Trump ending business

Contractors in China said they will not be affected by Ivanka Trump’s decision, after media reported that the US first daughter had decided to leave business and close her brand.

US President Donald Trump’s daughter has decided to shut her company, opting instead to pursue a career in public policy, CNN reported on Tuesday (US time).

And employees of her company have been “informed that they’re being laid off,” the New York Post reported.

In response to this turn of events, two original equipment manufacturers (OEM) for the Ivanka Trump brand told the Global Times on Wednesday that the businessperson’s decision will have little impact on their businesses, in terms of either performance or employment.

A spokesperson with Jiangxi-based Huajian Group, a leading shoemaker in China that previously made Ivanka Trump-brand shoes, told the Global Times that since the company had stopped placing new orders in the first half of 2017, the factory’s business would not be affected by the move.

Another contractor involved in producing shoes for Ivanka Trump's label, based in South China’s Guangdong Province, said there is just one small batch of orders left.

“When these orders are completed, we’ll be done. There’s no more to come. Our plant has orders from other clients so the impact of Trump’s decision is really limited,” the contractor said, asking not to be identified.

Ivanka Trump set up her brand in 2014, according to media reports.

But after her father’s election, the brand was faced with boycotts from some US retailers on the grounds of conflict of interest, according to a BBC report on Tuesday.

There is speculation that Ivanka Trump’s decision was actually due to poor sales.

But a spokesperson for her company insisted that the decision “has nothing to do with the performance of the brand and is based solely on Ivanka’s decision to remain in Washington indefinitely,” according to the BBC.

Judging from the lack of orders Ivanka Trump’s company had pending with its Chinese contractors, its retreat from China by severing its relationships with OEMs seems to have been planned, analysts said.

The Guangdong company source revealed to the Global Times in March this year that the brand had been maintaining an increasingly low profile lately, with the traditionally conspicuous Ivanka branding dissapearing instead brands. from being packaging mixed in of with goods other and

Liu Jianying, an associate research allow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Coperation, told the Global Times on Wednesday that judging from news reports, the decision made by Ivanka Trump was totally due to her determination to pursue political life, rather than a result of the heightened trade tension between China and the US or the company’s sales performance.

On the other hand, the reason why Chinese OEMs are less affected is that some contractors for Ivanka’s brand are based in Indonesia, Liu added.