Ivanka Trump attended meeting with Japan's PM while closing Japanese deal

The potential issues surrounding President-elect Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest are now widening to include his daughter, Ivanka, raising concerns that, even if Trump were to fully divest himself of his own business (which he has yet to commit to doing), her independent business interests could still potentially influence the way he wields his presidential power.

Ivanka is already playing a key role in her father’s administration, as evidenced yet again today, when she met with former Vice President Al Gore, prior to a meeting he had with the president-elect to discuss climate change.

The New York Times reports that when Trump included Ivanka in his meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, last month, he was also helping Ivanka entertain a potential customer:

[Ms. Trump] looked on last month while he and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan chatted on a white couch high above Manhattan.

Some 6,700 miles from Trump Tower, in Tokyo, another exclusive gathering was already underway: a two-day private viewing of Ivanka Trump products, teeming with Trump-branded treasures like a sample of the pale pink dress Ms. Trump wore to introduce her father at the Republican National Convention.

Ms. Trump is nearing a licensing deal with the Japanese apparel giant Sanei International, both parties told The New York Times. The largest shareholder of Sanei’s parent company is the Development Bank of Japan, which is wholly owned by the Japanese government.

Ivanka came under fire during the primaries for using her convention appearance to promote her own business, and not even a week after her father’s electoral victory, was busy monetizing the U.S. presidency in much the same way.

As Shareblue has noted before, Trump’s plans to leave his business to his children is a sham that does nothing to address his own conflicts of interest, nor those of his children — particularly if his children are holding meetings with activists and diplomats alongside their father.