Product placement comes to the Oval Office

Dec 1st, 2016 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
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Last July the Independent went to Macy’s in New York to look at Ivanka Trump’s line of clothes.

One of the people at the Republican National Convention who received praise from all corners was Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

People liked her sharp comments, and admired her stylish line of clothes, which she highlighted during her performances. When she tweeted a link the morning after delivering a speech about how her father would fight for America, the $139 (£106) pink dress she had worn sold out online.

Ok wait, she what? She promoted her clothes during her “performances” – meaning her appearances at a political convention which nominated her father as a candidate for president? She flogged her clothes there? How grotesque, how tacky, how inappropriate, how gross.

That’s disgusting.

Yet many will be surprised to learn that the vast majority of Ms Trump’s clothes are not manufactured in US, but in China and Vietnam, two countries under the spotlight for human rights abuses and poor labour conditions.

So she uses a political convention to market her product, and she makes her product cheaply by doing it in China and Vietnam.

An inspection by The Independent of more than 25 different items of Ms Trump’s range at the Macy’s flagship store in New York city, found not a single one was produced in the US. A sales assistant confirmed that no items in the collection were made at home.

Donald? Any comment?

A number of commentators have favourably reflected on how Ms Trump used her moment in the spotlight last week in Cleveland to promote her own line of products, which includes clothing, accessories, shoes and fragrances.

Wtf? Why would anyone comment favorably on that? It’s so fucking sleazy.

During his campaign Mr Trump has spoken repeatedly about “bad trade deals” that have seen American jobs go to countries such as Mexico and China. When he was campaigning in Indiana he vowed to tax a producer of air conditioners, Carrier, which had announced it was moving 1,400 jobs from Indianapolis to Mexico.

Likewise, when he learned that the food giant RJR Nabisco had also relocated a factory to Mexico, he said he would stop eating Oreos, despite his love of the chocolate biscuits.

Later, speaking in the battleground state of Ohio in June, he declared: “We’re getting the hell beaten out of us. We’re going to stop. We’re going to bring jobs back to this country.”

Except in our companies. Everyone else’s, but not ours.

Harvard Trade and Investment Professor Robert Lawrence said earlier this year he had inspected a total of the 838 Ivanka Trump products that were advertised on the Trump.Com website. He said 628 were said to be imported and 354 were made specifically made in China. Her father’s products were also produced overseas.

“Trump castigates American companies like Apple, Ford, Carrier and Kraft that use their brands to sell goods in the US, but produce them in other countries,” he wrote in a column for PBS. “Yet despite these deep convictions, when it comes to his own businesses, Trump doesn’t exactly walk the walk.”

Why it’s almost as if he’s completely hollow.

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