At a recent gathering of Swiss business executives in the White House, the CEO of Rolex presented President Trump with a gold-plated desk clock.
The CEO of a precious-metals company presented the president with an engraved gold bar.
They were not the official representatives of Switzerland’s economic agenda – but the following week, their government announced a trade deal that drastically lowered the U.S. tariff on imported Swiss goods from 39 percent to 15 percent – now on par with the European Union.
So were the gifts appropriate for the U.S. president to accept?
We hear from University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter – formerly the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush.
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This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam and Brianna Scott, with audio engineering from Simon Laslo-Jansson. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
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