Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Lord & Taylor

Ivanka Trump’s brand won a slew of new Chinese trademarks in October despite its doors being closed in July.

The trademarks were filed for everything from umbrellas to sausages.

Critics warn that the trademarks raise questions of continued conflicts of interest.

Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, won initial approval for 16 Chinese trademarks despite the company shutting its doors in July, according to records released by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The trademarks are the largest grouping approved in a single month for the brand since Trump’s election, and raise questions surrounding continued conflicts of interest for one of Trump’s senior advisers.

The applications for the trademarks, which pertain to everything from bags to umbrellas to sausages, were filed in May 2016, but were notably not withdrawn when Ivanka’s business was shuttered.

In July, Ivanka closed down her business, saying “my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington.”

“I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business,” she said.

But according to an unnamed source from a July report in The Washington Post, the president’s daughter planned to continue to seek trademarks, even after her company shut down.

Shut down, but not shut out

Ivanka’s brand received intense scrutiny after Trump’s election. Her products were almost exclusively made overseas despite her and her fathers championing of local labour, and the brand was dropped from retailers like Marshall’s, Nordstrom, and TJ Maxx. Those developments were prompted in part by public animus toward her father. By June 2018, sales had dropped nearly 45%, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

In May, Ivanka’s brand received approval for seven trademarks. The same month, Trump announced that he had reached a deal with China to lift the US ban on telecom giant ZTE. The timing of that news raised some eyebrows as well.

Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Business Insider in May that “It raises significant questions about corruption, as it invites the possibility that she could be benefiting financially from her position and her father’s presidency or that she could be influenced in her policy work by countries’ treatment of her business.”

When Ivanka announced her brand’s closure in July, it was speculated that certain ethics conundrums stemming from the business would be sealed.

But according to Caroline Zhang, social media manager at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, these new approvals revive previous concerns of conflicts of interest: “Since she has retained her foreign trademarks, the public will continue to have to ask whether Trump has made foreign policy decisions in the interest of his and his family’s businesses.”

Previously, officials from Ivanka’s company have claimed that her international trademarks were measures to prevent foreign entities from capitalising on her name.

When reached for comment, Peter Mirijanian, spokesperson for Ivanka’s ethics attorney Abbe Lowell, took a similar stance: “These trademarks were sought to broadly protect Ms. Trump’s name, and to prevent others from stealing her name and using it to sell their products. This is a common trademark practice, which is why the trademark applications were granted.”

Whether or not Ivanka’s plans go beyond simple protection isn’t yet clear.

This post was updated at 12:16 PM on November 6, 2018 with a statement from Ivanka Trump’s attorney.

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