The Indicator from Planet Money - Mixing family business with US trade policy in Vietnam

Starting point is 00:00:00 NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Adrienne Ma. Last month, President Trump's son Eric paid a visit to Vietnam. He's an executive vice president at the family business, the Trump organization. And Eric was in town to break ground on a $1.5 billion project. The company's building a luxury residential development and golf course in the Hungyan province, which is right outside Hanoi.

Starting point is 00:00:35 This groundbreaking ceremony was important enough that Vietnamese Prime Minister, Fah Minchin attended. And he suggested in his public remarks that this golf course project will help smooth Vietnam-U.S. relations. The two countries are in trade talks right now. And Vietnam is hoping to avoid a sky-high 46% tariff rate. But this potential intermingling of official trade policy with Trump family business raises red flags when it comes to government ethics. Today on the show, we look at those flags and how Vietnam's difficult position in the trade war may have pushed the government to fast-track a deal. deal. Back in 2017, in the early months of the first Trump administration, Jessica Tillapin was invited

Starting point is 00:01:27 by a U.S. federal agency to lead a training session for foreign government officials. Jessica is an associate dean at the George Washington University Law School, and she was there to teach these foreign leaders how they could improve their ethics and anti-corruption rules back home. And they asked me about the ethics rules, and I said, well, you know, they are very strong in the United States, but they don't apply to our president or vice president. And there was laughter in the room from a country that has very significant corruption issues. And it was not laughing with us. It was a laughing at us.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Just roaring with laughter. And you're just standing in front of your PowerPoint. Like, anyway. Look at how strong our ethics rules. You should adopt something similar. Yeah. That's a little bit awkward. But here is what Jessica was explaining to those foreign officials.

Starting point is 00:02:20 In the U.S., the majority of executive branch employees are covered by ethics rules. These rules are less about violating the law than they are about appearances. You know, giving the impression that government officials might have a conflict of interest. There's a wide variety of ethics rules that relate to everything from the acceptance of gifts, appearances of maybe favoritism. We're really going to things that would keep the American public from considering that their public officials might be acting in their own private interest instead of public interest. And as she said, these rules don't apply to the president and the vice president.

Starting point is 00:02:55 Jessica says there are a couple theories around why this is the case. One is that these leaders need more latitude. Another theory has to do with not wanting Congress to infringe on what the executive branch does. Either way, Jessica says, presidents have followed a longstanding tradition to avoid conflicts of interest, or the appearance of conflicts. And they've done this by putting their assets in what's called a blind. trust. That means during their presidency, an independent manager controls some of their assets. Trump broke with this precedent during his first term. He put his holdings in a trust that he could

Starting point is 00:03:28 tap for funds whenever he wanted. And as for other ethics considerations, Trump's lawyer did publicly unveil a plan for him to avoid conflicts of interest during his first term. But Jessica says it didn't amount to much. There wasn't a lot of meat to it. It was kind of more of a skeletal, high-level commitment to being ethical, with some sort of oversight and guidance frameworks put into place, we started to see in practice that these kind of overarching commitments weren't necessarily followed. Flash forward to the second Trump presidency, and there's a new voluntary ethics pledge. But Jessica says the commitments are even lighter this time around. So it's harder to trust that the president is avoiding conflicts of interest. The ethics restrictions within the United States

Starting point is 00:04:13 government get to not only actual issues of, you know, concern, but appearance issues. We've talked about the Trump meme coin on our show. And there's also that plane you might remember that the Trump administration accepted from Qatar. And now this $1.5 billion project in Vietnam. Right now, we have a burning red flag appearance issue. I'm sure that other countries are watching this. And the biggest concern is that are certain trade deals being negotiated with the American interest in mind or with the Trump families in mind. And, you know, the goal is to not have these types of questions. The Trump organization may also build a tower in Ho Chi Minh City, and the Vietnamese government reportedly fast-tracked approvals for the golf course project.

Starting point is 00:05:01 Waving through this development may be Vietnam's most pragmatic option in the trade war. That's according to Hein Wynne. She's from Vietnam and is currently a PhD scholar at Australian National University. She's researching economic security in Southeast Asia. When comes to leverage, unfortunately, Vietnam doesn't happen a lot. So we try to get close to the Trump business and the Trump family. It's definitely a gamble. But at the same time, Vietnam just doesn't have a lot of choice. Heinz says Vietnam's government sees economic growth as a crucial part of its political legitimacy. Vietnam's economy expanded 7% in 2024. It benefited from the first Trump administration's trade war with China. And that's because a lot of companies like

Starting point is 00:05:46 Hasbro and Apple shifted some of their manufacturing from China to Vietnam to, you know, avoid the tariffs that were on Chinese goods. On the downside, that created a large trade deficit with the U.S., which, as we know, the Trump administration hates. The Vietnamese government has tried to build goodwill with the U.S. It agreed to buy more American agricultural products. It's also cracking down on when companies rewrap products. from China to Vietnam and then label them as made in Vietnam to avoid paying those higher tariffs on Chinese goods. And despite these measures, Heinz says Vietnam is still under pressure. It's caught between the U.S. and China, two economic superpowers that are at loggerheads.

Starting point is 00:06:28 Things definitely does not look good right now for Vietnam because the U.S. reportedly sent a list of demands that Vietnam-based factory to reduce their use of materials and components from China. Vietnam's manufacturing sector is dependent on imported raw materials from regional supply chains based in China, reducing or even cutting off, like input materials and components from China when caused significant damage to Vietnam's economy. Ethics expert Jessica Tilletman worries that the Trump organization may pursue more questionable deals like the one it has in Vietnam. She raised similar concerns about conflicts of interest during the Biden administration when the president's son Hunter was selling artwork. Jessica flagged at the time that some people might be buying the art to influence the president. She says the concerns are even greater now because of Trump's involvement in his family business,

Starting point is 00:07:22 a company that's doing deals in countries negotiating with the U.S. government. And the numbers are much bigger, too. Hunter Biden reportedly made around $1.5 million from his artwork sales. The Trump organizations deals around the world add up to billions of dollars. The president of the United States holds a unique position that's able to control so many different levers within the United States government. And so, you know, for four years, is it too much to ask any presidential family to try to take steps to reduce those concerns? I don't think that's too much to ask for such an incredible opportunity to lead the country.

Starting point is 00:08:01 You know, but reasonable minds can disagree. And clearly, the current administration disagrees with me and many other ethics experts on this point. We reached out to the Trump Organization and the White House about the ethics concerns around the Vietnam golf course. We did not hear back from the White House, but the Trump organization responded that the project has, quote, zero connection to the administration or to its policies and was signed long before Trump's re-election. For clarity, the project was signed in September 2024.

Starting point is 00:08:31 This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Jimmy Keely, as fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, Kate Kincanon is our show's editor and the Indicators of Production of NPR.

The Indicator from Planet Money - Mixing family business with US trade policy in Vietnam

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