President Donald Trump has said he sees no reason to restrict his family’s business activities during his second term, arguing that he was criticised rather than recognised despite voluntarily limiting such dealings during his first presidency.In a lengthy interview with The New York Times, Trump said his experience of his first term in office convinced him that self-imposed ethical restraint brought little benefit. He framed earlier efforts to distance his administration from his family’s global business interests as a one-sided sacrifice that did not change how he was treated.“I got no credit in the first term,” Trump said. “I got nothing but criticised.”The remarks came as Trump was pressed on conflicts of interest and the expanding international footprint of businesses linked to his family. He said that during his first presidency, he had effectively barred his sons from pursuing certain overseas deals and donated his presidential salary, steps he stressed were voluntary and not legally required.According to Trump, those actions did not blunt scrutiny or criticism, leading him to conclude that keeping business interests at arm’s length was pointless. “I didn’t have to do that,” he said, indicating that the experience directly shaped his more permissive approach in his second term.Trump rejected the idea that continued business activity by his family should be viewed as problematic. He insisted that he separates his official duties from private enterprise and described his family as “very honest”, arguing that accusations of conflicts of interest were unfair and selectively applied.His comments came amid a broader defence of policy positions that overlap with industries in which companies linked to his family are active, including cryptocurrency. Trump has argued that his support for such sectors reflects national economic interests and US competitiveness rather than personal gain.The business discussion fit into a wider pattern that ran through the nearly two-hour Oval Office interview, in which Trump repeatedly returned to perceived slights from his political career. He spoke at length about criticism from the press, frustration over what he sees as insufficient recognition for his achievements, and his long-standing grievance about not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.Throughout the conversation, Trump portrayed himself as a results-driven leader who measures decisions by outcomes rather than adherence to established Washington conventions. He contrasted his instincts as a businessman with what he described as rigid ethical norms that, in his view, are enforced unevenly.By tying his current stance directly to his experience in his first term, Trump framed the issue less as an abstract ethics debate and more as a personal reckoning. In his account, restraint brought criticism rather than praise, and that, he indicated, is not a lesson he intends to repeat as he sets the tone for his second presidency.
