Ivanka Trump's life is a complicated juggling act of image maintenance, conflicts of interest, and public service

(Image credit: Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

last updated 12 March 2018

Ivanka Trump wears many hats these days: senior White House adviser, diplomat, Trump Organization investor, first daughter, and, a Trump confidante tells The Washington Post, President Trump's "little girl." Ivanka Trump resents being paired with her husband, fellow senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, as "Javanka," and while in televised appearances she "seems to present a simulacrum of herself — a for-public-consumption version that is at once both poised and guarded, complete with a breathy, unplaceable accent," the Post notes, "in private, her voice sounds an octave deeper" and she "sprinkles her conversation with the occasional curse word."

Trump, 36, says she doesn't "like to leave a lot up to fate," but at the moment, the Post says, "Ivanka — whose first name has become a brand identity — controls increasingly little of the world she inhabits." She is increasingly butting heads with Chief of Staff John Kelly, is the subject of unflattering leaks by anonymous White House aides, and has "come under sustained criticism for her eponymous fashion line, which she still controls and which relies exclusively on foreign factories in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and China, where low-wage laborers — many of them women and children — have limited ability to advocate for themselves," The Washington Post says.

But while "much has been written about problems caused by Ivanka Trump's brand of clothes, handbags, and shoes," McClatchy reports, "little attention has been paid to trouble caused by her continued relationship with the Trump Organization," including "countless potential conflicts of interest prohibited by federal law and federal ethics standards." Trump expects to earn $1.5 million a year from three Trump-affiliated companies, plus more money from additional Trump Organization businesses, and she "also retains an interest in Ivanka Opo Hotel Manager LLC," which includes the Trump International Hotel in Washington and the Ivanka Trump-branded spa in the hotel, McClatchy notes. You can read more about those potential conflicts at McClatchy.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.