Trump business brings in millions
Children take in millions as president slams Biden’s son
As the president slams Biden’s son, his own children forge ahead with projects in foreign countries.
WASHINGTON — Eric Trump sounded shocked that Hunter Biden hadn’t drawn more criticism for his lucrative business deals in Ukraine and China while his father, Joe Biden, was vice president.
“Can you imagine if I took 3 cents from the Ukraine or 4 cents from China?” President Donald Trump’s second-oldest son asked in a recent Fox Business appearance.
Eric Trump and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., run the Trump Organization, which conducts business — and takes in tens of millions of dollars annually — around the globe and is still owned by the president. The company is forging ahead with projects in Ireland, India, Indonesia and Uruguay, and is licensing the Trump name in such turbulent areas as Turkey and the Philippines.
Their sister Ivanka is a senior adviser to the president. She kept her international fashion business going for 18 months after she was given a loosely defined White House portfolio that includes interacting with heads of state and working with domestic and international corporate chiefs on economic programs.
On the same day Trump and his daughter dined with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in April 2017, China awarded her three preliminary trademark approvals for jewelry, handbags and spa services. In all, she has obtained more than a dozen Chinese trademarks since entering the White House, ensuring her access to the world’s second-largest economy if she goes back into business.
Time and again, Trump’s children have blurred the lines of family, nation and business — essentially the charge the president makes against the Bidens as he battles a House impeachment inquiry focused on whether he improperly pushed Ukraine to investigate his political rivals for what he claims were shady dealings.
Trump’s children “appear to people all over the world to be his bagmen,” said Richard Painter, who served as White House ethics czar under President George W. Bush. “This is the Trump business empire. It’s owned by Donald Trump, the president, and they are managing it for him and collecting business on his behalf.”
While Hunter Biden’s overseas deals may have embarrassed his father, now a Democratic presidential candidate, no evidence has emerged to suggest wrongdoing by the former vice president.
“There’s no substantiated or credible allegation that I know of that Hunter Biden’s work was personally financially benefiting Joe Biden,” said Robert Maguire, research director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit that is suing Trump and alleges he is illegally profiting from the presidency.
“With President Trump, we know his two adult sons are going around the country and the world to make money for a company that President Trump himself personally profits from, that he also personally promotes using the White House,” he added.
During an August business trip to Indonesia, Trump Jr. dismissed reporters’ questions about potential conflicts of interest as “totally asinine.”
Eric Trump said Thursday at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in New York that his family would go “down as one of the few families that have actually made a tremendous sacrifice.”
“We’ve lost a lot of money based on the fact that we don’t do any deals, that we’re sitting silent” while his father is in office, he said.
Since the company is privately held, that’s impossible to prove. In the meantime, both brothers sometimes travel on Air Force One — Eric was aboard Thursday when the president flew to a rally in Minneapolis — and in June, both brothers dined at Buckingham Palace in London during Trump’s state visit. Both also spoke at Trump’s reelection kickoff rally in June in Orlando, Florida, and Trump Jr. is a leading surrogate at campaign events.
After he was elected, Trump pledged not to seek new foreign business deals while president.
He never divested from the Trump Organization, however, which had licensed his name for real estate developments around the globe.
Trump owns more than $130 million in assets across 30 countries under the trust controlled by his children, according to an analysis of his financial disclosures by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in Washington that tracks money in politics.
The assets generated more than $100 million in income in 2017 and 2018 combined, according to the group, which calls those estimates conservative because the president has only disclosed ranges, not specific figures, in public.
While some Trump properties have “taken a nosedive” since he became president, according to Anna Massoglia, a researcher for the center, others — such as his hotel in Washington — have benefited from foreign interests that moved events to his properties after Trump took office.
The Trump Organization, as part of a stated commitment to return foreign profits to the U.S. Treasury, said it sent $191,538 to the government last year. But the company has not explained how it calculated that figure.
Last month, Trump Jr. hosted about 100 people in New York who had purchased homes in Trump branded luxury towers near New Delhi. Visitors flew over Manhattan in helicopters, dined at Trump’s hotel and listened to a “fireside chat” between Trump Jr. and an Indian business partner.
Trump Jr. repeatedly told Indian reporters of his desire to do more business in India and other countries once his father leaves office.
“I’d love to be in the market right now,” he told CNBC-TV18, a major channel for business news in India. “But there is a bigger picture and there’s an important picture for us, for our country, for what my father is doing, and for Americans. There will be time to be back in that later on, and I’m sure those relationships will remain.”