NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Adrian Ma. Last month,

President Trump's son Eric paid a visit to Vietnam. He's an executive vice president at the family

business, the Trump organization. And Eric was in town to break ground on a $1.5 billion project.

The company's building a luxury residential development and golf course in the Hungyan province,

which is right outside Hanoi. This groundbreaking ceremony was important enough that Vietnamese Prime Minister Fa Minchin attended.

And he suggested in his public remarks that this golf course project will help smooth Vietnam-U.S. relations.

The two countries are in trade talks right now.

And Vietnam is hoping to avoid a sky-high 46% tariff rate.

But this potential intermingling of official trade policy with Trump family business raises red flags when it comes to government ethics.

Today on the show, we look at those flags and how Vietnam's difficult position in the trade war may have pushed the government to fast-track a deal.

Music may have pushed the government to fast-track a deal. Back in 2017, in the early months of the first Trump administration, Jessica

Tillapman was invited by a U.S. federal agency to lead a training session for foreign government officials.

Jessica is an associate dean at the George Washington University Law School, and she was there to teach these foreign leaders how they could improve their ethics and anti-corruption rules back home.

And they asked me about the ethics rules,

and I said, well, you know, they are very strong in the United States, but they don't apply to our

president or vice president. And there was laughter in the room from a country that has very

significant corruption issues. And it was not laughing with us. It was a laughing

laughing at us. Just roaring with laughter. And you're just standing in front of your PowerPoint,

like, anyway. Look at how strong our ethics rules. You should adopt something similar.

That's a little bit awkward. But here is what Jessica was explaining to those foreign officials.

In the U.S., the majority of executive branch employees are covered by ethics rules.

These rules are less about violating the law than they are about appearances,

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