Trump Receives Permission to Trademark Casino and Gambling Services in Macau

POTUS rattles the nuclear sabre at North Korea, and tries to blame China for the complete disregard Kim Jong-un shows him in reply. Meanwhile his company, DTTM Operations Limited, quietly applies for, and received, trademarks for the Trump brand in Macau.

While technically speaking DTTM Ops is currently held in trust by his two eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr, this has not kept him from illegally using the White House to further his family ventures in the past, with Kellyanne Conway suggesting people buy Ivanka’s fashion line and DTTM Operations Ltd remaining registered at Trump’s home away from the White House: Trump Tower.

This looks like an extraordinary conflict of interest on the surface (China has given licenses to ten Trump brands in the seven months since Trump took office), but in this case any alleged racketeering is unlikely to pay-off for a little while.

You Should Have Put Your Name On It...

The trademark applications are renewals on old holdings, originally taken up in 2006, which under Macau law can expire if they remain in disuse. So this may represent nothing more than an attempt to keep control of the name. 

However, the current casino licenses in Macau are largely set to expire in 2020 across the board. Which is anticipated to be a year of massive shakeups in the Vegas of the East as every major player will be looking to renew their licenses at once.

Failing Upwards

Trump has taken a bath on his casino investments in the past, having had to sell off the iconic Trump Taj-Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey because it fell into bankruptcy. But he has never been a one for learning from his failures, so he may well be inclined to try again somewhere new.

Given that the applications include permissions for real estate deals, restaurants, hotels, and building, it may be that Trump, or his proxies, are looking ahead to 2020 when they might be able to jump in the pool with Trump’s erstwhile crony Sheldon Adelson.

It may be a holding pattern, or we may be about to see a lot of Trump’s money move into Chinese investments in a couple of year... and then into slapping the gaudy gold “Trump” label onto them.