US President Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, has shared some insight into his shift to the crypto industry, the problems with the traditional financial system, and how it was “weaponized” against the Trump family businesses.
Trump shared that hundreds of accounts for the family’s business were shut down without an explicit reason, leaving the Trump Organization “debanked” and “scattering millions across accounts at regional banks before eventually migrating to a new bank,” which he did not name.
According to the interview, Eric Trump, executive vice president at the Trump Organization, began warming up to the industry during his father’s second presidential campaign, as he became aware of the struggles of crypto companies with banking services.
“This whole system was weaponized against them, no different than it had been weaponized against us for different reasons,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal, noting that both conservatives and crypto firms have alleged that banks have denied them services for political or religious reasons.
The Trump administration has made stopping the crackdown on the sector a top priority. Crypto industry leaders have accused the previous administration of using financial exclusion as a weapon against numerous companies and founders, in what many have named “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”
Eric Trump also addresses the conflicts of interest allegations, asserting that there’s a separation between the family’s crypto businesses and President Trump’s official businesses. “I literally have nothing to do with Washington, D.C.,” he affirmed.
Nonetheless, Trump said in the interview that memecoins serve as a “powerful gateway” for newcomers, arguing that “If somebody wants to go in and they want to buy $TRUMP, congratulations, now you have access to Bitcoin, you have access to Ethereum, you have access to USD1, you have access to the United States dollar.”
You just took the first step in actually creating some financial freedom that I think so many people around the world want.
