THE “TRUMP ROYAL FAMILY” THINKS THEY ARE ABOVE REGULAR AMERICANS

…Ivanka and Jared, totally anti-American manufacturing entrepreneurs.

 

As to “America First”,  Ivanka and her father seriously need to “put up, or shut-up”.

 

Have you noticed that in spite of all the positive comments made about Ivanka Trump’s focus on working women, both Ivanka and her husband Jared are now losing stature in the eyes of the American public.

 

On Inauguration Day, President Trump stood in front of the US Capitol building and vowed that his “America First” agenda would bring millions of jobs back to the United States.  This week he’s doing his America First and Buy American salute to American manufacturers, while most of his and Ivanka’s products are NOT made in America.

 

“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs,” he declared at the inauguration, adding: “We will follow two simple rules — buy American and hire American.”

 

Looking on from the front of the Capital’s stage was Trump’s daughter Ivanka, the celebrity and fashion entrepreneur who would soon join him in the White House.

 

The first daughter’s has said her cause would be for improving the lives of working women, a theme she had developed for her clothing line. She also brought a direct link to the global economy that the president himself was railing against, a real connection that was playing out at that very moment on the Pacific coast.

 

As the Trumps stood on the inauguration stage, a hulking container ship called the OOCL Ho Chi Minh City was pulling into the harbor of Long Beach, Calif.  It was carrying 500 pounds of foreign-made Ivanka Trump spandex blouses.  Another 10 ships hauling Ivanka Trump-branded shoes, cardigans and leather handbags bound for the United States were floating in the north Pacific and Atlantic oceans and off the coasts of Malta, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and Yemen.  Those global journeys, along with thousands of pounds of Ivanka Trump products were imported into the United States in more than 2,000 shipments since 2010. This illustrates how her business practices collide directly with some of the key principles she and her father have championed on their way into the White House.

 

President Trump has chastised companies for outsourcing jobs overseas.  But an examination by The Washington Post has revealed the extent to which Ivanka Trump’s company relies exclusively on foreign factories in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.  In all cases in these countries, the low-wage laborers have no option to advocate for themselves.

 

And while Ivanka Trump published a book this spring declaring that improving the lives of working women is “my life’s mission,” The Post found that her company lags way behind many in the apparel industry.  That is when it comes to monitoring the treatment of the largely female workforce employed in her supplier factories around the world.

 

From big brands such as Adidas and Kenneth Cole to smaller, newer players like the California-based Everlane, many US clothing companies have in recent years made protecting factory workers abroad a priority.  They do this by hiring independent auditors to monitor labor conditions.  Also by pressing factory owners to make improvements and providing consumers with details about the overseas facilities where their goods are produced.  But that is not occurring within the Ivanka and Donald Trump companies.

The Ivanka Trump brand has taken a much more hands-off approach. Although her executives say they have a "code of conduct" that prohibits physical abuse and child labor, the company relies on its suppliers to abide by whatever that the policy says.  The Ivanka clothing line has declined to disclose any of the language of their "code of conduct".

 

Ivanka, who now works full time in the White House, has stepped away from daily operations of her business. She has instead assumed a high-profile place on the world stage.  This was on display when she briefly filled in for her father during a G-20 meeting with foreign leaders.  She was seated between the president of China and the British prime minister.

 

Ivanka Trump still owns her company, which has faced increasing scrutiny in recent months for its use of overseas factories.  But her representatives have said she has the power to veto any new deals or agreements.

Ivanka has refused to respond to requests for comment about what efforts she has made to oversee her company’s supply chain.

 

Her attorney Jamie Gorelick told The Post in a statement that Trump is “concerned” about recent reports regarding the treatment of factory workers and “expects that the company will respond appropriately.”

 

In the wake of Ivanka’s departure, the brand has begun to explore hiring a nonprofit workers’ rights group to increase oversight of its production and help improve factory conditions, this is according to the  company’s executives.

 

Abigail Klem, has been a top executive at the Ivanka brand since 2013, and its president since last January.  She is planning her first trip to tour their facilities that make Ivanka Trump products in the coming year.

Klem said she is confident that the company’s suppliers operate “at the highest standards,” adding, “Ivanka sought to partner with the best in the industry.”

 

“The mission of this brand has always been to inspire and empower women to create the lives they want to live and give them tools to do that,” Klem said. “We’re looking to ensure that we can sort of live this mission from top to bottom with our licensees, with our supply chain.”

 

However, The Post used data drawn from US customs logs and international shipping records to trace Trump-branded products from far-flung factories to ports around the United States. The Post also interviewed workers at three garment factories that have made Trump products.  They had said their jobs often come with exhausting hours, subsistence-only pay and insults from supervisors if they don’t work fast enough.

 

“My monthly salary is not enough for everyday expenses, also not for the future,” said a 26-year-old sewing operator in Subang, Indonesia, who said she has made Trump dresses.

 

Among the current items in Ivanka Trump’s line are, blouses made in China, suit jackets made in Vietnam, dresses made in Indonesia and women's denim jackets made in Bangladesh.

 

In Ethi­o­pia, manufacturers have boasted of only paying workers a fifth of what they earn in the Chinese factories.  Workers in Ethiopia made thousands of Ivanka Trump-brand shoes in 2013, the shipping data shows.

If Ivanka Trump’s company followed the president’s exhortations to move production to the United States, the prices would rise dramatically, pushing buyers away and dragging down company profits.  This is according to industry experts.  The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, a nonprofit organization, estimated in 2013 that a denim shirt that cost $3.72 to make in Bangladesh would cost more than three times as much to make in the United States.

 

Instead of pulling production back into the United States, the apparel industry has been focused on a different strategy: trying to reassure American consumers that their retail purchases are not the result of exploitation.

 

A wide range of clothing lines now inspect their own supply chains to make sure labor standards are met, these companies say. Among them is Levi Strauss, which, like Trump’s brand, licenses some of its production from a large New York-based clothing distributor called G-III Apparel.  A Levi spokeswoman told The Post that the company inspects its production facilities annually and has published factory information since 2005, but Ivanka and her father haven’t done that for any of their factories.

 

The Ivanka Trump company’s relatively passive approach is notable, as is its lack of participation in industry efforts to improve conditions for workers.  This is according to international labor advocates.

“I have been doing this stuff for 20 years, and I have never seen her [Ivanka Trump] brand in any of these venues,” said Judy Gearhart, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum.

 

“It’s just good business to care about everyone involved in the various layers of production . . . especially when the end product is such a beautiful symbol of love,” Ivanka Trump has said, according to a news release by the group.

 

In last year’s presidential campaign, Trump took the opportunity to showcase her products on the national stage. After she paid tribute to her father at the Republican National Convention in a soft-pink sheath dresses, her social media team urged buyers to “shop Ivanka’s look”.  The results were that the $138 Chinese-made dress sold out. quickly

 

In the company’s Trump Tower headquarters, a staff of about 16 employees runs the Ivanka Trump design team, social media accounts and branding campaigns — including #WomenWhoWork, a movement-as-hashtag that emerged as the company’s driving motto and it shows up regularly on Twitter.

 

But along with facing massive safety risks, Ivanka’s Bangladeshi garment workers toil for one of the world’s lowest minimum wages.  “We are the ultra-poor,” said Kalpona Akter, a Bangladeshi labor organizer and former garment worker who was first hired by a factory at the age of 12. “We are making you Americans beautiful, while we are starving.”

Back in December 2016, thousands of workers seeking higher pay went on strike outside the capital city of Dhaka. In response, police rounded up and arrested several dozen labor organizers.  The factory owners then filed criminal complaints against hundreds of workers, according to Human Rights Watch. An estimated 1,500 garment workers were suspended or out-right fired.

 

However, in recent months, efforts to market the Ivanka Trump clothing brand have run headlong into the polarizing Trump political brand.  After Nordstrom stores dropped her line in February, citing low sales, the president complained on Twitter that his daughter had been “treated so unfairly”.  That caused the pro-Trump supporters to rush to buy her products.   Presidential counselor and advisor, Kellyanne Conway drew a strong warning from federal ethics officials for telling TV viewers during the White House press meeting, "to go buy Ivanka’s stuff.”

The many detractors of the president have posted negative reviews of Ivanka Trump items online, needling her for relying on cheap foreign labor while pushing her Buy America, Make American and America First approach.

 

A 26-year-old Bangladesh sewing-machine operator told The Post that she makes the equivalent of $173 a month, the region’s minimum wage. Her full name, like that of other workers, is being withheld by The Post because the workers fear being punished or fired for speaking to the media.

She said she spends $23 to rent her small studio in the bustling factory town of Subang, where she sleeps on a mattress on the floor and hangs her clothes from a cord hung along the wall.  She saves the rest of her pay for her 2-year-old daughter, but she worries she will not be able to afford elementary school fees, which can cost as much as $225 a year.

 

With no child care, she is forced to leave the toddler at home with her parents in their village, a journey of about 90 minutes away by motorbike across the rice fields. On the weekend, she joins an exodus of parents from Subang who clamber onto their motorbikes or into shared vans, racing home for their brief reunions.

 

In the meantime, Trump has shown no shame as she continually increases her international profile as an advocate for working women.

 

During a trip this spring with Ivanka’s father to Saudi Arabia, she told a group of Saudi female leaders that she aims “to help empower women in the United States and around the globe.”

 

And in May, Ivanka published her book, “Women Who Work,” in which she detailed her commitment to promoting equitable work conditions.  “As a leader and a mother, I feel it’s as much my responsibility to cultivate an environment that supports people, and the roles we hold, both in our family and business lives, as it is to post profits,” Ivanka wrote. “One cannot suffer at the expense of the other, they go hand in hand.”  Then in late June, she helped unveil the State Department’s latest human-trafficking report, which labeled China one of the world’s worst offenders on forced labor.

 

“Let us recommit ourselves,” she said, “to finding those still in the shadows of exploitation.”

 

This all sounds great, but the reality is that Ivanka needs to seriously “put up or shut-up”, and the same goes for her father.

 

But we all know that all the members of the Trump Royal Family already think of themselves well above and beyond the rest of us.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017