The South China Morning Post has reported that one of President Donald Trump’s companies has applied for 4 new trademarks in Macau and one of them has to do with Macau’s casino industry. Public records in Macau show that a company known as DTTM Operations LLC applied for these four trademarks back in June 2017.
DTTM Operations LLC Applies For Four Trademarks
The Delaware based company filed trademark applications covering industries such as real estate, restaurant and hotel services, the casino industry and construction. The South China Morning Post reported that these four identical trademarks were initially applied for in 2006 and were approved. Since these four trademarks lapsed earlier this year, DTTM Operations LLC was applying for them to be granted once again. The Post did not shed any light as to why trademarks have to be forfeited in Macau for non-use.
Donald Trump did venture into the casino industry many years ago with the launch of the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. He would later go on to sell the property and move out of the casino industry. However there are no Trump branded business ventures in Macau till date but based on the recent trademark filings, there is speculation that the Trump brand could be planning a new venture into Macau.
Trump Looking At Macau Casino License?
Macau is the biggest gambling hub in the world and although it went through 26 months of decline in gross gaming revenues, Macau’s casinos have experienced a turnaround since August 2016. There are six major gaming operators in Macau and they are the only ones who are authorized to receive gaming licenses from Macau’s gaming regulator. Las Vegas Sands Corp, MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts are part of the six major operators and all of them have to apply for a casino license renewal in 2020.
These major casino operators have invested billions of dollars in Macau over the years to develop some of the most iconic casinos in the world and are responsible for creating thousands of jobs for the locals and generating billions of Macau Patacas in the form of gaming tax revenues. All six casino operators expect their casino licenses to be renewed in 2020 considering their importance to the city and the investment they have made into Macau.
Some gaming analysts believe that Macau’s gaming regulator will renew the casino licenses for the six major operators but will also make provision to issue a new casino license to a seventh provider. Given the fact that one of Donald Trump’s companies have applied for a trademark in Macau’s casino industry, there is speculation that the seventh license could be given to the company belonging to the President of the United States (POTUS).
Conflict Of Interest
This is one of the reasons why Democrats and ethics lawyers are concerned about the possible conflict of interest between the office of POTUS and the People’s Republic of China. Lawyers are concerned over the fact that China has approved a large number of Trump trademarks since he became POTUS and believe that this might open the White House to outside pressure from foreign governments.
The logic is simple. There could be numerous applications for the potential seventh gaming license in Macau but if one of those applications belongs to a company belonging to the POTUS, it is highly likely that Macau’s government could show partiality to a Trump company in exchange for special favors going forward. Trump is already battling three lawsuits over Chinese trademarks which allege that they are gifts from China and violate the U.S constitution’s emoluments clause.
Trump’s defense team has looked to squash these arguments on the basis that the trademarks were mandatory to protect the Trump brand and prevent squatters from manipulating the Trump name. China has also come out in support of Trump stating that when it issued trademarks to Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump, it did so in an impartial and fair manner.
Alex Bumazhny, a Fitch Ratings gambling analyst states that if Macau’s gaming regulator wanted to award the seventh casino license to a Western based casino operator, then Trump would have a very small chance at winning that license as there were a number of other publically traded companies with more recent experience of developing and running large scale casino resorts.