Jamie Gorelick, a Washington ethics lawyer who is acting as an independent adviser to Ms. Trump’s trust, said in a statement
that since Ms. Trump had resigned from her company, she “has had no involvement with trademark applications submitted by the business.”
“The federal ethics rules do not require you to recuse from any matter concerning a foreign country just because a business
that you have an ownership interest in has a trademark application pending there,” she added.
Ms. Klem, president of Ms. Trump’s brand, said in a statement, “The brand has filed, updated
and rigorously protected its international trademarks over the past several years in the normal course of business, especially in regions where trademark infringement is rampant.
“Before my brothers and I joined the company, our business was primarily a New York-based operation,” she wrote in her book, adding
that her father would say, “There are plenty of great deals right here in New York.”
It was not long before she began to concurrently push her own brand in many of the same markets as her father’s.
Even since her father took office, her own fashion brand has continued to look abroad, filing four new trademarks in Canada
and the Philippines, according to a New York Times analysis of trademark records.
Earlier this month, China approved three new trademarks for Ms. Trump’s brand on the same
day she met China’s president, Xi Jinping, according to an Associated Press report.
Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a left-leaning watchdog group, said
that if Ms. Trump’s brand was trying to expand operations or import from other countries, there could be “meaningful interaction” with foreign governments.