As Ivanka Trump sat in on a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Trump Tower last month, a Japanese apparel company with connections to the country’s government was nearing a licensing deal with Donald Trump’s daughter.
Ivanka Trump’s licensing deal with apparel company Sansei International has been in the works for about two years, the New York Times reported Sunday.
The largest shareholder of Sansei’s parent company is the Japanese government. At the time of the prime minister’s meeting with the president-elect on Nov. 18, a private showing of Ivanka Trump’s products was underway in Tokyo.
“Ivanka is even more popular here than Mr. Trump,” magazine editor Sayumi Gunji said.
Her company told the Times that the terms of the licensing agreement were decided before the election.
The report comes as the president-elect and his children face increased pressure to put up a wall between their businesses and Trump’s position in the White House.
Trump said last week that he would make an announcement on Dec. 15 about “leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country.”
