When Donald Trump arrived in China this week, he brought along a sizable American entourage, including several prominent White House Cabinet secretaries and executives from leading corporate giants.
But the president’s delegation also included his middle son, Eric Trump, who is neither a Cabinet secretary nor an executive from a leading corporate giant. The New York Times reported:
While he is not a member of his father’s administration … Eric Trump does lead the Trump family business. And the company, known as the Trump Organization, has flirted with Chinese business deals over the years, raising the question of whether his presence could blur the lines between government business and private enterprise.
By way of explanation, a spokesperson for the American president’s controversial family business said Eric Trump is in China “in a personal capacity,” adding, “He will not be participating in private meetings, but will instead stand alongside the president to mark this historic occasion.”
In other words, Eric Trump joined his father in Beijing as a member of the president’s family — and that’s it.
Except it’s not nearly that simple. The obvious problem is that Donald Trump went to great (and at times dishonest) lengths to go after Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, for his efforts in China, which predated Biden’s presidency.
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The less obvious problem is that Eric Trump cannot easily wear two hats at once, one as a supportive son, the other as a leader of the sitting American president’s family business, whose profits indirectly reach the sitting American president’s pocket.
Indeed, the closer one looks at the context, the more problematic the details appear. As the Times’ report noted, Donald Trump and his team loosened self-imposed ethics restrictions at the start of his second term, which led the Trump Organization to start striking a variety of foreign deals (including one in Indonesia, whose president was recently referred to Eric Trump directly by Donald Trump). While that list does not include China, the same Trump Organization has a history of pursuing possible ventures in the Asian giant.
What’s more, as my MS NOW colleague Zeeshan Aleem explained last month, the Trumps’ China trip “creates all kinds of possibilities for dealmaking that could undermine the public interest.”
As for the Trump Organization’s public assurances that the president’s son will not be participating in private meetings, Aleem added, “[T]here’s no way to hold him to his word, nor is there any way to prevent Chinese government officials or businessmen from privately approaching him with potential deals. … In fact, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Chinese government officials wouldn’t be thinking about how to use a relationship with Eric Trump to influence his father’s policy decisions.”
It’s incumbent on U.S. administrations to avoid the appearance of conflicts like these. As is too often the case, Team Trump doesn’t seem to care.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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