The family business · First term · № 22
Ivanka Trump's company won provisional approval for three Chinese trademarks the day she dined with Xi Jinping
- Date
- , China Trademark Office records, reported by the Associated Press
- Subject
- China
- Benefit
- Gifts and payments
- Government
- China
- Beneficiary
- Ivanka Trump (Ivanka Trump Marks LLC)
- Topic
- Ethics & conflicts
- Era
- First term
What happened
On April 6, 2017, Ivanka Trump's company won provisional approval from China's Trademark Office for three trademarks giving it exclusive rights to sell Ivanka-branded jewelry, bags and spa services in China, the Associated Press reported on April 18, 2017. That evening she and Jared Kushner sat beside Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife at the Mar-a-Lago summit dinner. Ivanka Trump, then an unpaid White House adviser, still owned the brand, which she had placed in a family-run trust valued at more than $50 million; her attorney Jamie Gorelick said she would not weigh in on business strategy but retained authority to terminate agreements that created a conflict. The brand said Ivanka Trump did not sign off on the applications and that they were "not necessarily an indication" of plans to launch products in a given territory. AP said there was no sign the approvals were unusually swift, and China's Trademark Office did not respond to a request for comment. Former Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter urged her to stop seeking trademarks while in government. Freedom House rated China Not Free in its 2017 report.