US President Donald Trump earned $59.5 million last year by licensing the use of his name abroad, after abandoning a promise he made during his first term not to make trade deals with foreigners while in the White House, according to a new report.
CNBC reported, citing an analysis of Trump’s latest financial filing, that the windfall came from deals with foreign real estate developers to slap the Trump brand on luxury skyscrapers, golf courses and coastal resorts.
The Republican magnate’s income increased 71 percent compared to 2024 and almost 10 times compared to 2023, which contributed to increasing a personal fortune that Forbes now estimated at $6.4 billion, an increase of more than 25 percent compared to last year.
By comparison, the latest estimates from the Census Bureau show that the median income of American households was $83,730 in 2024, an increase of less than 1.3 percent from 2023, which the bureau called “not statistically different.”
“Foreign governments and politically connected companies now have a direct and incredibly visible way to put money into the pocket of the sitting president,” Scott Greytak of the US anti-corruption organization Transparency International told CNBC.
Truth Social visits drop
Online traffic to Trump’s Truth Social platform plummeted about 36 percent last month, even as its larger rivals saw their user numbers grow, according to a report.
The site also saw a slightly larger decline in users during June, according to The New York Timeswhich cites figures compiled by digital data company Similarweb.