(Reuters) – United States presidential adviser Ivanka Trump visited Twitter on Tuesday to support Goya Foods after the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States became the target of a boycott campaign in the Social media sparked by the gushing praise of its CEO by President Donald Trump.
FILE PHOTO: Ivanka Trump, senior adviser to the White House, watches her father, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, take a photo opportunity in front of the Episcopal Church of San Juan in front of the White House during Ongoing protests of racial inequality in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in Minneapolis Police Custody, outside the White House in Washington, USA, June 1, 2020. REUTERS / Tom Brenner
“If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” Ivanka, the daughter of Donald Trump, tweeted the company’s slogan in English and then repeated it in Spanish on Tuesday night.
Ivanka’s tweet, in which she is seen holding a can of Goya black beans, garnered more than 35,000 retweets and 62,000 likes in just over 4 hours.
However, your comments could violate government ethics rules that prohibit the use of public office to endorse products or promote personal business profits. The United States Government Ethics Office did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway came under fire in 2017 after she appeared to break similar federal ethics standards when she said on television that Americans should “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.”
The White House took no disciplinary action against Conway, even after calls from the ethics regulator.
In an interview with Fox News last week, Conway denounced the Goya Foods controversy. “It is a shame that people do everything so politicized, including food,” she said.
The hashtags #Goyaway and #BoycottGoya were trending on Twitter after Robert Unanue, chief executive of the New Jersey-based company, appeared with Trump at the White House Thursday for the signing of an executive order creating a dedicated advisory panel to stimulate Hispanic prosperity.
“We are all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder, and that is what my grandfather did,” said Unanue, who is the third generation of his family who runs the business.
Trump himself intervened in the dispute on Friday night, simply tweeting: “I LOVE @GoyaFoods!”
Report from Shubham Kalia in Bangalore; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
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