Trump's company now has its own branded trademark for America's 250th
Plus: Trump’s latest branded foreign policy initiative takes its name literally
President Donald Trump’s family company is preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. founding with merch bearing the president’s name.
DTTM Operations, a company that manages trademarks for Trump and the Trump Organization, filed trademarks Friday with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, for a “Trump 250” mark for use on stickers, tote bags, hats and apparel, drink ware, and golf balls, according to a filing first reported by NOTUS. A trademark was also filed for a secondary mark that shows five jets with contrails that says “Trump 250.”
The trademarks will give the Trump Store a chance to monetize the anniversary among Trump’s fans and collectors with merch, and it’s just the latest example of those in Trump’s orbit and administration centering him in this year’s celebrations.
Ephemera like federal building banners and the National Parks passes have pictured Trump alongside historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, and late last year, the White House launched “Freedom 250,” a public-private initiative planning competing events to America250, the group established by Congress for the commemorations.
The potential for “Trump 250” merch shows an apparent shift in focus for one of Trump’s long-term revenue lines: branded apparel and products. Though Trump’s presidential campaign website donaldjtrump dot com now directs straight to his campaign shop, its digital storefront is stale. There’s still “Trump-Vance 2024” hats, shirts, and lawn signs for sale. An attempt to turn executive orders into $43 collectibles after Trump took office only made it market twice, for his EOs establishing DOGE and “Gulf of America Day, both now more than a year old.
Instead, the product innovation in Trump world these days is coming from the Trump Organization. Its online storefront not only includes the all-time bestseller, the “Make America Great Again” hat, but more. You can buy red “Trump 2028” and “Four More Years” hats on trumpstore dot com, but not Trump’s eponymous political website, plus there’s products like an $18 MAGA Hat pot holders, $38 “Kiss Me I Voted for Trump” tees, and branded golf gear. It not only sells Trumpism as a political movement, but as lifestyle, which is where Trump’s brand got its start anyways in hotels and casinos.
For the term-limited president, the decision comes down to business. His political merch sales have to be split among the RNC and his Vice President J.D. Vance’s Working for Ohio PAC. A MAGA hat or “Trump 250” shot glass sold at a Trump hotel gift shop doesn’t.
Trump might sell apparel and headwear that attempts to brand the country’s anniversary as his own or references a third unconstitutional term. But as his operation prioritizes his company’s bottom line before political fundraising, the sales strategy here seems like it’s more for a man staring down retirement than one gearing up for a fourth consecutive run.
When the cost of the Iran war touched down on U.S. soil for the first time, Trump wore a ball cap
Donald Trump dressing down.
The remains of six U.S. service members killed in Kuwait following the U.S. strike on Iran were returned home Sunday during a dignified transfer at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Trump wore a branded hat for the occasion.
Dignified transfers are solemn movements for military members who lost their lives overseas. They involve flag-draped caskets for the fallen and a trained carry team of seven people who execute precise movements to bring the casket off an aircraft at Dover, home of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations and America’s sole port mortuary.
For the nation’s commander-in-chief, it’s usually a sartorial moment for showing respect. On Sunday at Dover, though, Trump dressed the same way he does for a campaign rally, wearing a blue suit, a red tie, and a hat you can buy for $55 on his company’s website. The white baseball hat had “USA” embroidered in gold across the front and “45-47” on the side.
The reaction was swift and negative. “I know what Republicans would have said if Obama had done this,” former Republican National Committee communications director Doug Heye wrote on X. “Shameful.”
On Fox News, they didn’t even show the image, instead using footage of a previous dignified transfer where Trump was hatless. The network later apologized and claimed it was an accident.
It’s not as if Trump doesn’t know what to wear. He’s dressed appropriately for the occasion before, at a dignified transfer in December for two Iowa National Guardsmen and a U.S. civilian interpreter killed in Syria. On Sunday, his wife and most of his traveling party managed to dress without distraction.
First lady Melania Trump wore a long black coat and black gloves, Vance wore a dark suit and tie, and others in the administration also dressed conservatively, while military leaders wore full dress uniform. Only Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who wore a white overcoat and big, round sunglasses, looked like they were dressed for a different occasion.
Trump wore his white “USA” hat last month when he announced the Iran war in a video statement. Since then, it has become a symbol for a war that is unpopular with the majority of Americans. Still, the hat has proven popular with his base. A note on his shop reads: “Due to high demand, this hat may take an additional 7-10 days to process and then ship.”
This story first appeared in Fast Company..
Trump’s latest branded foreign policy initiative takes its name literally
Trump brands his battle against drug cartels in gold.
When Trump announced on March 5 that he was firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, he said she would be named special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas,” which sounds like it could be an eighty-sixed Marvel movie but is, in fact, the unofficial name of a new multilateral initiative targeting drug trafficking and cartels. On March 7, it was brought to life in the form of a summit held in Doral, Florida.
The summit included representatives from some Latin American and Caribbean countries, and was held at Trump’s golf resort just days after he ordered U.S. troops into Ecuador as part of a joint narco-terrorism operation. It was also held about two months after the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. At the summit, Trump called the group a “military coalition to eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region”; 17 nations signed on, paving the way for the U.S. to do elsewhere what it did in Ecuador.
In a presidential proclamation about the initiative, Trump said the U.S. will “train and mobilize partner nation militaries to achieve the most effective fighting force necessary to dismantle cartels and their ability to export violence and pursue influence through organized intimidation.”
It seems Trump felt this new war on drugs, which is expanding throughout the Western hemisphere, needed a brand to match.
The logo is a red shield that frames a golden map of North and most of South America (its most Southern region is cut off by the initiative’s name, “Shield of the Americas,” in all caps). “Doral 2026” appears in metallic silver directly underneath the main wordmark, and angled red, white, and blue stripes sit directly below that. All the typography is set on a curved baseline, which is a common treatment for sports team logos. Gradients abound, although none share the same focal point.
While Trump’s domestic policy is getting a unified treatment under the National Design Studio, his foreign policy so far doesn’t have the same slick and standardized aesthetic. It does, however, follow a familiar theme of Trump’s personal brand: Make it gold.
A second example comes from Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, which he rolled out in January with a logo inspired by the United Nations emblem. Its visual identity borrows from the U.N. to give itself a look that aims to convey credibility, even though the group’s membership lacks longtime democratic allies and includes authoritarian regimes. But compared to the U.N.’s version, this map again has a gold, metallic wash that’s more visually indicative of Trumpian myopia than of long-standing democratic norms like governance through coalition.
The Shield of the Americas logo gives Trump’s hemispheric drug war its own visual brand, though the group’s name as it appears in the summit logo doesn’t actually show up anywhere in the president’s proclamation, which instead calls it “the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.”
Technically, “Shield of the Americas” was the name of the summit, but helpfully for Trump, that name lends itself to more literal and evocative graphic design than the mouthful that is “Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.” While self-obvious, a graphic shield makes the idea of protection impossible to miss. All together, it’s exactly the sort of staging you’d expect from a reality-TV-producer-turned-president: flashy and direct.
With Shield of the Americas, Trump makes what’s actually an expansion of U.S. military force seem defensive, and gives his flagging foreign policy a newly gilded sheen.
This story was first published in Fast Company.
Have you seen this?
Ex-POTUSes gather. Three Democratic former U.S. presidents spoke at Jesse Jackson’s funeral services in Chicago on Friday, and it won’t be the last time ex-POTUSes gather in the city this year knowing W. was invited to the just-announced Obama library opening later this summer. [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]
After a three year delay, Jan. 6 plaque honoring police officers installed at the Capitol. “On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021,” the plaque says. “Their heroism will never be forgotten.” [NBC Washington]
The most popular MAGA influencer you’ve never heard of is an A.I. foot fetish model. A fake soldier duped a million patriots for OnlyFans cash. It’s a sign of more worrying things to come. [Fast Company]
