Trump’s Trademark Deal Clearly Violates Constitution (VIDEO)

Many of the laws in the United States are so rarely broken that it’s hard to know exactly how they can be violated. The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution is one of these laws.

Nevertheless, one of President Donald Trump’s newest business moves is such a clear-cut violation of the Emoluments Clause that it’s staggering.

The Emoluments Clause is an anti-bribery measure that prohibits government officers – including the President – from getting anything of value from foreign dignitaries. The Clause says:

“No person holding any office of profit or trust under [the United States] shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, officer, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

This part of the Constitution, however, has almost never come up in the past. This has left it unclear exactly what an “emolument” is, and what should be done to punish it. American politicians had simply realized that being caught receiving gifts from foreigners would taint them as unpatriotic and kill their political aspirations.

President Trump, however, has no such qualms. As he proclaimed so proudly during the campaign, he has business ties around the world. It was one of the few things he said that had an iota of truth to it.

Some of those business ties were in China. There, the Trump Organization has been competing with another business for a trademark since 2006. The Chinese government, however, refused to grant the Trump Organization exclusive use of the trademark, which cost Trump’s business millions of dollars.

So, in one of Trump’s first acts as president, he took a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. It was the first time since 1979 that an American president had spoken with a leader from Taiwan.

China considers Taiwan to be a part of China – the so-called “One China” policy – and even speaking with a Taiwanese head of state threatens this view.

Soon after the call, though, Trump backtracked. He decided that he would affirm the One China policy.

Only a few days after that, China awarded the Trump Organization its trademark.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein put it succinctly:

“If this isn’t a violation of the Emoluments Clause, I don’t know what is.”

While the deal surprised many, it shouldn’t have. Trump explicitly told Fox News in December – before taking office – that he was going to do it.

“I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘One China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”

Of course, some people probably assumed that “trade” meant something that would benefit the United States which, in hindsight, was an utterly preposterous assumption.

Featured image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.