As President’s Approval Numbers Slump, Ivanka’s Brand Soars

Despite the slumping of President Donald Trump’s poll numbers, his daughter, Ivanka, has been enjoying a recent surge in popularity. The business she left behind when she took an advisory role in the White House has been enjoying record sales numbers in 2017.

Ivanka Trump stepped away from the management duties of her women’s fashion line in January before officially joining the White House staff. Her portion of the profits are kept in a family-run trust.

Though she does not have an active role in her company right now, the Trump brand appears to be unstoppable. The company has applied for at least nine new trademarks in countries such as Canada and Puerto Rico — and February saw a new sales record reached.

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“Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand,” Abigail Klem, president of the Ivanka Trump fashion brand, told Refinery29 in a March interview. “For several different retailers Ivanka Trump was a top performer online, and in some of the categories it was the [brand’s] best performance ever.”

This was despite the call for boycotts, which led to Ivanka Trump products’ being dropped from the physical outlets of such places as Nordstrom.

In addition to spreading its global reach, Ivanka Trump Marks LLC. has also put out more affordable lines of jewelry and clothing that have likely helped to spike popularity.

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Ivanka Trump herself has been seeing no financial benefits from her business or even political endeavors.

She announced recently she was donating the royalties from her forthcoming book, “Women Who Work,” as well as the unpaid portion of her fee to charity. “In order to extend the reach of those who will benefit from this book, I have established the Ivanka M. Trump Charitable Fund to receive the unpaid portion of my advance and future royalties received from ‘Women Who Work’ and to make grants to charitable organizations that support the economic empowerment for women and girls,” she wrote on Facebook.

Ivanka Trump’s role in the White House is also reportedly an unpaid position.

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Despite her attempts to remove herself from financial gains and business endeavors, some people have still brought up concerns about Ivanka Trump holding a position in the White House.

“Ivanka has so many China ties and conflicts, yet she and Jared appear deeply involved in China contacts and policy. I would never have allowed it,” said Norman Eisen, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in former President Obama’s administration, according to The Wall Street Journal. Eisen was referring to recent meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Around the time of the meetings, Ivanka Trump’s company was granted preliminary approval for three trademarks filed in China.

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Her lawyer has insisted the company and its former owner are working entirely separately. “She has retained authority to direct the trustees to terminate agreements that she determines create a conflict of interest or the appearance of one,” said her attorney, Jamie Gorelick, according to The Journal.

The ethics arguments appear as little more than smoke and mirrors to consumers and Trump supporters alike. Ivanka Trump has stepped away from her company and the potential for short-term financial gain for the next four years or so, but her business will no doubt benefit from her becoming more favored in the public eye. It’s inevitable.

While it appears as if the president’s brand has taken some hits of late — with controversial decisions surrounding foreign policy and an unflattering first 100-day report card — his daughter has not been affected, and she’s only getting more and more popular.