March 9, 2026, 2:46 p.m. ET
The Trump Organization has filed a series of trademark applications connecting the president to the nation’s 250th anniversary.
DTTM Operations, the company that manages President Donald Trump’s intellectual holdings, filed the trademarks on March 6 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The organization is closely associated with the hospitality business run by Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
The applications include two “Trump 250” images for use on stickers, tote bags, drinkware, apparel, sporting equipment and other goods. Another includes a design with “five aircraft followed by converging contrails,” with “Trump 250” imprinted at the bottom.
The trademark applications were first reported by NOTUS.
They come as some government watchdog groups have questioned whether the president is hijacking bipartisan plans for the milestone commemoration and using it to benefit his own interests. Those concerns bubbled up earlier this year after the president created a nonprofit to carry out his vision of the 250th anniversary, separate from the bipartisan organization America250 that Congress created in 2016 to plan the year’s signature events.
The president appears to support the trademark requests, according to the filings. A 1946 law governing trademarks prohibits registering a living person’s name without their consent.
Neither The Trump Organization nor the lawyer listed on its applications immediately responded to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
This is not the first time the company has sought to trademark the president’s name. In February, it filed applications for “President Donald J. Trump International Airport” and “Donald J. Trump International Airport” on an “intent to use” basis, meaning it wanted to claim the name before it was used.
Those filings came after the president suggested a major airport, such as Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, DC, or Palm Beach International Airport in Florida, be renamed in his honor.
Trump has a long history of naming buildings and products after himself. Most recently, the president has added his name to the wall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and on the exterior of the U.S. Institute for Peace, a congressionally funded think tank.
Karissa Waddick covers America’s 250th anniversary for USA TODAY. She can be reached at kwaddick@usatoday.com.
