President Donald Trump‘s at times austere positioning on economic matters starkly contrasts with the stream of glitzy business endeavors he’s launched in his vast empire.
On occasion, the president has described his “America First” approach to business and trade in rather anti-materialistic language. Less is more if it’s made in the United States, he’s implied, suggesting that people affected by higher prices caused by protectionism could adapt their buying behavior and get by with fewer goods.
“All I’m saying is that a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, a 9-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls… She could be very happy with two or three or four or five,” Trump recently told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding in an interview the same day that people “don’t need to have 250 pencils… They can have five.”
It’s an approach characterized by Jonathan Hanson, a specialist in political economy on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, as “an older style of industrial organization in winter.” He said that to the extent Trump imposes tariffs on foreign countries to carry out his “Made in America” agenda, consumers could see “a restriction in the choices available to us, and a rise in prices associated with that,” which could do deep damage to the American dream.
However, Trump’s take on business — relying on a host of ventures built to maximize quick profits — is far grander than his minimalist views on national economics, which critics view as bordering on severe. According to financial documents released June 13, the president reported over $600 million in income last year from various enterprises.
He licensed his name, image, and likeness to be used in marketing for Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA Bible” last year, raking in $1.3 million from the venture.
The president made nearly $3 million last year selling limited-edition watches. In September, he launched 147 diamond-crusted gold watches that he deemed “truly special,” ranging in price from $499 to $100,000. After the president won reelection in November, he launched a $899 gold-plated inauguration edition watch.
He also brought in a total of $2.5 million last year from Trump sneakers and fragrances, personally unveiling a “Never Surrender High-Tops” shoe deal at Sneaker Con last February shortly after a New York judge ordered him to pay over $350 million following a lengthy civil fraud trial. The president’s collector’s edition deal featured 1,000 sneakers priced at $399, with the merchandise selling out only a few hours after their debut. Perfume and cologne, known as “Victory47,” were also available on the website. After a gunman nearly assassinated Trump at a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the website launched another limited edition high-top sneaker deal. Shoes emblazoned with a photo of Trump pumping his fists during the assassination attempt were priced at $399 and distributed to the first 5,000 buyers. In the same month, the president announced that the Trump Sneakers company would sell only 1,000 “Bitcoin Sneakers” for $499 a pair, marketed as “perfect for crypto enthusiasts and Trump supporters alike.”
Most recently, the president’s company announced Trump Mobile, with plans for U.S.-made gold-plated phones starting at $47.45 a month, an ode to his non-consecutive terms in office. Trump’s two oldest sons branded the latest money-making venture as a move to create products “right here in the USA.”
Trump’s business empire is “unlike any president that we’ve seen before,” Hanson said.
At times, the president’s lucrative exploits in private sector ventures have appeared to be wedded to political initiatives, such as his involvement in the crypto industry.
Days before his inauguration, Trump revealed his cryptocurrency called $TRUMP. The total market capitalization of the meme coin sits at roughly $1.8 billion after hitting nearly $15 billion in early January. After Trump announced in April plans to host a dinner for the 220 biggest investors in his meme coin, prices surged, leaving him as much as $1.25 million in profits in a week.
The Trump Mobile launch was in line with the White House’s economic policy messaging. It came mere weeks after Trump targeted phone manufacturers in the U.S. for not making their phones entirely in the U.S. The president announced last month that tech companies such as Apple and Samsung would be subject to 25% tariffs unless they moved operations to the U.S.
“It’s about time we bring products back to our great country, and it’s about time we disrupt this space,” said Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, during remarks at New York City’s Trump Tower while unveiling the Android “T1” smartphone.
Critics noted that Trump Mobile’s promise to create phones “proudly designed and built in the United States” was conditioned by the word “eventually.” Hanson said it “remains to be seen” if they could really make phones in the U.S., since the vast majority of production happens in China or Taiwan. The Trump sons’ failure to acknowledge that wasn’t lost on Dr. Amanda Phalin, a professor with the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business Management Department.
“What’s striking is to look at where all of these products are made, and further, where their components are made,” she said. “So, a lot of the top-branded products are actually made in China or in other foreign countries. And for those that are ‘made in the USA,’ that may mean that they are put together in the USA, but the component parts of the product are made in foreign countries.”
“To me, it’s irony and hypocrisy to be advocating these protectionist policies to restrict trade while trying to make money off of products and their component parts that are a result of that trade,” Phalin concluded.
While he’s pumping out profits under the America First agenda, critics say that the president’s protectionist policies may end up hurting the very people he’s seeking to put “first.”
Open trade, said Brad McDonald, an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, has contributed “very substantially over time” to powering the American dream. But protectionist policies such as tariffs can put such social mobility at risk, he argued.
“What if, say, back in the 1930s, when Congress passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, that did not cause the Great Depression, but contributed to the Great Depression and prolonged it — what if we had kept those tariffs and still to this day? Then, you know, what might be our level of income today?” the professor questioned. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer would be, then, we have declined incomes by, say, one-third or something on that order of magnitude.”
US MERGER WITH NIPPON STEEL FINALIZED AFTER TRUMP APPROVES MERGER
Others compared Trump’s philosophy to that of President Jimmy Carter’s.
“When President Trump says things like, ‘Oh, you don’t need $30 you can get by with two,’ a really interesting historical comparison would be to look back at Carter, and he was trying to reduce energy usage because of the oil crises, and so he made a suggestion that we lower the temperature in our household and wear sweaters instead of using energy to heat,” Phalin said.