Trump's unprecedented merchandising of the presidency is bigger than ever
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To buy one of each item in President Donald Trump’s company’s online storefront today would cost you nearly six figures. The good news is you’ll qualify for free shipping for an order over $125.
The Trump Store sells a whole skincare line plus branded golf gear, robes, blankets, glassware, and more. There’s the classic red “Make America Great Again” hats for $47, an $80 Trump Home jasmine room spray and diffuser set, and Trump-branded coffee pods that sell for $18 for a 12-pack.
All told, there are 1,492 total items for sale at the Trump Store that together cost $91,145.12, according to a new review of Trump’s branded merchandising business by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the presidency, and it’s a growing revenue stream for Trump.
“We’ve never seen any president profit off of something like the Trump Store, or indeed, any of the numerous businesses that Trump has continued to profit from while serving as president,” CREW communications director Meghan Faulkner tells me. She says the merch along with things like Mar-a-Lago memberships or Trump’s cryptocurrency “normalizes the idea that the presidency is for sale.”
“The merch store is just the most obvious physical representation of how Trump has essentially put his office up for sale,” Faulkner says.
CREW found that this storefront, which Trump launched in 2017 during the first year of his first term, brought in about $8.8 million in 2024, the latest year of Trump’s financial records, which is more than double how much it made the year before. Of the shop’s currently available products, 662 of them were launched since he took office for a final term last year.
Congress could and should pass a law requiring presidents and vice presidents to divest from assets that could pose a conflict of interest within 30 days of taking office, Faulkner says, and there should be clear enforcement mechanisms to hold them accountable if they don’t divest.
The Trump Store isn’t the same thing as Trump’s since-shuttered online campaign store where he once hawked MAGA hats to fundraise for his presidential campaigns. It’s his company’s own storefront, which isn’t beholden to the same Federal Election Commission rules, like annual limits or a prohibition against any foreign purchases. This revenue also goes straight to him rather than being split up among other groups that his joint fundraising campaign revenue was once divided between.
The growth of Trump’s merchandising business comes amid a broader shift in his overall merchandising strategy. Though Trump continued his campaign shop for a time after taking office for a second term last year, introducing new products like a prop “Gulf of America” executive order, lately the focus has been on releasing new products on his company’s shop instead, like new “Trump 250”-branded items to profit off the anniversary of the U.S. founding this year. Meanwhile the campaign’s online shop is no longer accessible from Trump’s campaign website.
Before entering politics, Trump licensed his name to branded buildings and products like water and a board game, and his hotel and golf course business necessitated things like branded toiletries and robes that he still sells today.
But it’s unusual for a U.S. president to sell branded gear in office like Trump does. Jimmy Carter’s family put its peanut farm in a blind trust after he took office, and they didn’t start a peanut butter brand or sell peanut tchotchkes to supporters. And while some presidential libraries do have gift shops, those come after a president leaves office, and are nowhere near as robust as Trump’s efforts.
Trump’s merch isn’t just lifestyle stuff, it’s explicitly political too. He sells at least 99 items that reference his presidency, including a $55 Space Force hat and a $50 “Gulf of America – Yet Another Trump Development” hat. The shop also sells merch promoting an unconstitutional third term, like “Four More Years!” and “Trump 2028” hats and a shirt that says “Trump 2028 (Rewrite The Rules).”
Trump’s already rewriting the rules of how presidents profit off their office. By merchandising his presidency, he’s monetized political fandom into a personal revenue stream for himself.
This story was first published in Fast Company.
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