Donald Trump isn’t having the smoothest International Women’s Day. His celebratory tweets weren’t received well, and this is probably the worst possible day for news to surface on the Trump Organization’s new batch of Chinese trademarks, which would allow the family business to set up shingles for massage parlors and escort services. Yeah, that’s pretty embarrassing, and of course people are plucking those examples out of a list of 38 entries that also includes trademarks for golf courses and insurance companies.
However, this all make fine business sense for Trump, who has been plagued by a deluge of folks registering the Trump name for embarrassing Chinese trademarks for condoms and toilets, along with beauty cream and almost anything else that one can dream up. Trump’s career includes a series of failed businesses, but he loves slapping his name on almost anything, and he doesn’t want anyone else profiting from the family name.
Also and as researched by the Washington Post, someone really tried to open a Trump Escorts company in 2016. Trump’s lawyers shut it down, of course, but here’s a screencap of their highly classy website splash page.
Trump definitely doesn’t want anyone believing that he’d run an escort service, either while serving as president or otherwise, so this news has prompted a lot of laughter. In addition, this will cause folks to make conflict-of-interest noises, which makes sense. There’s an unavoidable appearance of impropriety with a president whose dealings with China could be made with a business portfolio in mind, but voters knew this already.
Trump’s sons are officially running the Trump Organization, but he’s still (at heart) a business mogul whose (modestly sized) hands stretch around the globe. In 90 days, the trademarks will be finalized, and the door will be closed on Trump massage parlors messing up his presidential vibe from China. And thank goodness — the dude tweets himself into enough messes on his own.
(Via Business Insider & Washington Post)