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It’s official: President Donald J. Trump International Airport is open for business.
The South Florida facility was called Palm Beach International Airport for over half a century until Thursday, when a months-old state law took effect, adding the airport to the growing list of places and things that now bear President Trump’s name.
Trump flies in and out of this airport relatively often, as it’s mere miles from his oceanfront estate, Mar-a-Lago. The lifelong New Yorker declared Palm Beach his permanent residence in 2019, and travels there regularly from the White House. More than 8 million passengers fly through its airport each year, on over a dozen airlines.
“Florida, get ready to take the exit for President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on X earlier this week, alongside a photo of an updated airport sign on the interstate. Separately, a 4-mile stretch of the main road linking Mar-a-Lago to the airport was renamed for Trump in January.
The Federal Aviation Administration authorized the name change to take effect Thursday, meaning it now officially identifies the airport as “DJT” instead of “PBI.”
The airport said in an online FAQ that the transition — including updates to signage, branding and public-facing materials — “will occur in phases.” For example, passengers should still search “PBI” when booking flights and checking bags, until the International Air Transport Association (IATA) code changes on August 18.
The airport says ownership and operations will not be affected, describing it as a “branding change only.”
“While we recognize that the required name change may be received in different ways by our passengers, we’re grateful for your continued support through this transition period,” airport officials wrote. “While some things may evolve over time, our core focus remains the same: providing a safe, reliable and welcoming airport experience.”
The name change — now the subject of two separate local lawsuits — is controversial for several reasons.
For one, while a dozen other U.S. airports are named after American presidents, Trump is the first to receive that distinction while in office.
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, for example, was renamed for the late president a month after his assassination in 1963. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in the D.C. area added his name in 1998, nearly a decade after he left office.
“Airports named after presidents have traditionally been designated once they leave office and through decisions made by local communities and local authorities — not imposed from above,” Florida Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat, said in a May statement, calling it “a clear overreach” by the legislature.
Trump also took the unusual step of registering trademarks for the airport’s new name.
DTTM Operations, the private company that manages Trump’s intellectual property, filed three applications in February, for “DJT,” “President Donald J. Trump International Airport” and “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” As of this week, all are pending approval.
Trump Organization spokesperson Kimberly Benza told NPR over email that “it is the company’s normal practice to file for trademark protection because the ‘Trump’ name and brand is internationally known and a frequent target of infringers, counterfeiters and unauthorized users around the world.”
Trump and the Trump Organization have denied any attempts to gain financially from the effort. But the move to trademark the name has raised questions about whether Trump could benefit.
“Most of the time, these things are meant to be an honorary renaming and … in this case, obviously, there’s a private entity owned by Trump’s family whose trademarks are now licensed to a publicly-owned airport,” said Josh Gerben, a D.C.-based trademark attorney. He says none of the other presidential namesakes hold their own trademarks.
Benza said, “the President and his family will not receive any royalty, licensing fee, or financial consideration whatsoever from the airport renaming.”
Trump has long faced accusations of profiting off the presidency, fanned most recently by financial disclosures revealing he made more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency and other business ventures last year. The White House has denied any financial conflict of interest. But experts say even the perception can be harmful.
“If you go back to 1976, Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer, and he sold off his peanut farm before he became president,” said Jake Linford, a professor at the Florida State University College of Law who specializes in copyright and contracts. “And that has been the custom, the norm. And it was a norm that Trump violated.”
The White House did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
Legal experts see a loophole in the licensing agreement
Earlier efforts by U.S. House Republicans to rename Virginia’s Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump seem to have stalled. But the idea of renaming the Palm Beach airport quickly became a reality in the red state Trump calls home.
The Florida legislature passed the renaming legislation, along party lines, in February. By the time Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law in March, DTTM had already filed multiple trademark applications for the new name.
As a result, the bill specifically requires that there be an agreement between Trump and Palm Beach County authorizing the free, “perpetual and unrestricted” use of the name itself.
“Because otherwise they could theoretically be in violation of these trademarks that Trump had filed,” said Gerben.
The Palm Beach County board of commissioners voted 4-3 to approve the licensing agreement in early May, after a meeting where members of the public spoke strongly in favor of and against the renaming. The 35-page document includes variations of branding and logo options, including some featuring a golden eagle.
The agreement allows the county to freely use the name “President Donald J. Trump International Airport” for airport signage, merchandise and more. And it explicitly says that Trump “is prohibited from receiving royalties, fees, or revenue from the purchase or sale of any such merchandise by County or airport retailers.”
But legal experts told NPR that they see a potential loophole: sales that happen beyond the airport.
Because the license is non-exclusive, Gerben says, Trump could in theory license the airport name trademarks to third parties. And the contract doesn’t say anything about restricting those profits.
“So based on my reading of the agreement, it would seem that if [the Trump Organization] wanted to sell merchandise online, that they would be able to do so without any connection to the airport,” he says.
Rebeca Krogman, a spokesperson for the airport, told NPR by email that it has no current plans to sell branded merchandise following the name change, and is “unaware of any vendors currently selling airport-branded merchandise.”
The Trump Organization and White House did not respond to NPR’s questions about potential plans for merchandise sales outside the airport. But Eric Trump, the president’s son and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, took to social media in May to deny reports that the family could profit from the name change.
“The agreement expressly prohibits any profit-sharing from the sale of merchandise at the airport,” he wrote on X.
The three trademark applications list a wide variety of goods that would bear the airport’s name, including: watches, jewelry, collectible coins, cuff links, purses, backpacks, suitcases, umbrellas, tote bags, clothing, robes, neckties, belts and “plastic slippers used in the airport environment when going through security to keep feet and socks clean.”
The applications also span a number of services: airport construction, aircraft fueling, baggage check-in, passenger shuttles, ticket booking, airport lounges, snack bars, baggage security screening and more. These are all things an airport would typically do, says Gerben, who reviewed the applications this week.
“They are licensing the rights to Palm Beach County to basically operate the airport using Donald Trump’s name, and that’s going to appear everywhere at the airport,” he explained. “Think about it appearing on the shuttle vehicles or the terminals and all the different places that you see an airport name when you’re walking through the airport.”
Gerben calls them “very well drafted” from a legal perspective. Linford, however, points out that the merchandising clause of the licensing agreement “doesn’t talk about services” the way it talks about royalties from goods, which raises another question.
“So you could imagine a Trump airport lounge in the new Donald J. Trump International Airport where licensing fees going back to DTTM … and back to Trump’s holdings more generally isn’t foreclosed by this [agreement] at all,” he said.
Eric Trump’s denial did not explicitly mention services either.
“The agreement clearly states that in no event will Licensor, Trump, or any affiliate or entity we have an economic interest in or receive any royalties, fees, or revenue from the purchase or sale of any Airport Merchandise,” he wrote, doubling down on his tweet in May.
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The rebrand raises other questions
The new arrangement gives Trump more power over the airport in other ways, the lawyers say.
For one, it requires any merchandise for sale at the airport “to be purchased through approved retailers to the extent permitted by law.”
“So the airport or any of the concessionaires at the airport can’t just go out and source their own merchandise,” Gerben says. “Whoever’s making it has to be approved by Trump.”
He says that while many trademark licensing agreements have a clause requiring merchandise to be of a certain quality, it’s rare that they would specify the exact manufacturer.
As it’s written, Gerben says, it allows the Trump organization to “funnel to whatever company they want the ability to make all the merchandise that’s going to be sold on airport premises.” That could have cost implications for customers or the airport, depending on that manufacturer’s margins.
“I’m not sure that this clause in and of itself is enough to prevent any sort of kickback,” says Linford.
According to the agreement, Trump also retains control over any use of his “name, likeness, image and biographical information” at the airport. Gerben says that allows the Trump organization to control how he is presented, in photographs, signage and more.
“So if they don’t like the expression on Trump’s face on a picture that the airport plans to use, they’re going to have to find another picture,” he says. “If they don’t like some language that describes Trump or his presidency … they’ll have to rewrite it again.”
All of these things, he says, create more hoops for the county to jump through and could increase the cost of the renaming process, which already includes replacing signs and uniforms.
Airport officials have estimated the price tag at $5.5 million, according to member station WLRN. The 2026-2027 state budget that DeSantis signed into law last week allocates $2.75 million for the renaming.
Krogman, the airport spokesperson, told NPR that the rebranding will occur in phases “based on available funding.”
“The Department of Airports will continue to pursue all available funding sources, including legislative appropriations, eligible Florida Department of Transportation funding opportunities, grants and other airport funding sources,” she wrote, adding that any future funding decisions will go through the airport’s normal budgeting process.
