Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) sounded the alarm this weekend over a purported sweetheart deal that gave President Donald Trump direct financial control over a public Florida airport, telling his X followers the story has not received the attention it deserves.
In a post on social media, Levin laid out how a Florida county effectively handed Trump the trademark and licensing rights to a public airport, with the president now positioned to profit off branded merchandise tied to the facility.
“Not enough people are talking about this,” Levin wrote. “A Florida airport was renamed after Donald Trump. He walked away with the trademark, the licensing rights, and a deal that lets him profit off every piece of merchandise sold there.”
The deal Levin referenced is the same agreement the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reported on earlier this month, detailing how Palm Beach International Airport was rebranded as the President Donald J. Trump International Airport in a narrow vote of the Palm Beach County Commission. The airport sits less than five miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
According to the Guardian, the licensing agreement was signed by Trump last weekend and approved by the commission on a 4-3 vote in which the deciding ballot was cast by Maria Sachs, a Democrat. The remaining six commissioners split along party lines.
The agreement was struck with DTTM Operations LLC, the Delaware-based Trump Organization affiliate run by Donald Trump Jr. that handles licensing, marketing, and intellectual property for the family, according to the report.
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who has no connection to the deal, told the Guardian that the structure was “unusual.” Trump gets to pick the vendors who manufacture branded merchandise, can monetize the new airport name however he wants, and can license the trademark to any third party of his choosing. Although the agreement bars “direct financial compensation” from goods sold at the airport, the Trump Organization can cash in on the same merchandise sold anywhere else, including on Trump’s own online store.
Trump also retains final approval over how his name, image, and likeness are portrayed at the airport.
“The clause effectively limits the county’s editorial discretion, ensuring that portrayals of Trump, as both an individual and a former president, align with his personal preferences,” Gerben told the Guardian.
Levin honed in on how the deal got done as much as on the deal itself.
According to Levin, county staff warned commissioners that rejecting the renaming proposal could trigger retaliation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with state transportation funding at risk. The Guardian’s reporting confirms that account, noting that staff told the hearing that failure to comply with state law could jeopardize transportation funding and grant assurances from the state.
“DeSantis has already removed state attorneys and school board members who dared to cross him,” Levin wrote. “That is the reality the Democratic commissioner who cast the deciding vote was living in when she made her choice: hand Donald Trump control of a public airport or watch Florida Republicans strip funding from the very people she was elected to represent.”
Sachs defended her vote in a statement to the Guardian, saying the commission was not voting on whether to change the airport’s name but rather “approving a licensing agreement necessary to protect the county from trademark liability.”
Levin did not see the situation that way.
“That is absolutely insane,” he wrote Saturday. “Florida Republicans handed Trump a money machine and called it a naming rights deal, and the people of Palm Beach County never got a say in any of it.”
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