Conflicts of interest? Trump only has one interest: himself | Robert Reich

Summary

The president made $2.2bn last year, with plenty of help from his own political decisions. This is called corruption, folks People in the US: share your views on Trump’s earnings in his second term In financial disclosures released on Tuesday, Trump reported earning more than $1bn last year from his several cryptocurrency ventures. All told – including other parts of his vast holdings, such as his real estate assets – Trump made at least $2.2bn last year, as opposed to the roughly $622m his businesses raked in in 2024, before he returned to the presidency. In other words, it’s a fair guess that last year he made more than $1bn off his presidency. For example, Trump embraced crypto as a candidate in 2024. Then he and his family invested like mad in it – through CIC Digital , a Trump Organization affiliate that is behind his memecoin, $Trump, and through another Trump family-backed crypto company, World Liberty Financial, co-founded by Trump, his sons and the family of the special envoy Steve Witkoff in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign (but which the White House says Trump has divested from ). World Liberty is now behind several prominent crypto tokens. Since taking office, Trump has installed friendly regulators to oversee digital assets, and he’s pushed for landmark crypto legislation that would further free crypto from being treated as a security (in which case all sorts of disclosures would have to be made about it). These deals make it impossible for the public to judge whether Trump is working for America or for himself when he advocates for or implements a particular policy, such as his crypto policy or his moves in the Middle East. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.