{"id":71004,"date":"2026-05-14T13:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/71004\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:35:13","slug":"why-eric-trump-joining-his-fathers-trip-to-china-is-so-tough-to-defend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/71004\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Eric Trump joining his father\u2019s trip to China is so tough to defend"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

But the president\u2019s 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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

While he is not a member of his father\u2019s administration \u2026 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.<\/p>\n

By way of explanation, a spokesperson for the American president\u2019s controversial family business said Eric Trump is in China \u201cin a personal capacity,\u201d adding, \u201cHe will not be participating in private meetings, but will instead stand alongside the president to mark this historic occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, Eric Trump joined his father in Beijing as a member of the president\u2019s family \u2014 and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

Except it\u2019s not nearly that simple. The obvious problem is that Donald Trump went to great (and at times dishonest<\/a>) lengths to go after Joe Biden\u2019s son, Hunter, for his efforts in China, which predated Biden\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

\tRecommended<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Benen<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and 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.”\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tLatest Post\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tOn renewable energy, Interior\u2019s Burgum offers a case study in willful ignorance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Donald Trump arrived in China this week, he brought along a sizable American entourage, including several prominent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[81,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-71004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eric-trump","8":"tag-eric-trump","9":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116573197402566204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}