Trump pledges $50M to help women entrepreneurs

Associated Press

HAMBURG, GERMANY

President Donald Trump said Saturday the U.S. would contribute $50 million to a new World Bank fund conceived by his daughter that aims to help women entrepreneurs access capital and other support.

Ivanka Trump joined World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on the sidelines of the Group of 20 world leaders’ summit in Hamburg, Germany, to launch the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative.

Kim said the fund had raised more than $325 million so far for projects and programs to support women and women-led businesses by improving access to capital and markets, providing technical assistance, training and mentoring and pushing public policy. The fund grew out of conversations between Ivanka Trump and Kim early in Trump’s administration.

“This is not a cute little project,” Kim said during a panel discussion, arguing the effort would spur real economic growth.

President Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also spoke at the event, where Trump said the fund would help eliminate barriers for women to launch businesses, help transform “millions and millions of lives,” and “provide new hope to these women from countless communities all across the world.”

In addition to the U.S., Germany and Canada, the new fund has also received contributions from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Australia, China, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and South Korea.

Trump also took the opportunity to praise Ivanka Trump, who at one point Saturday was spotted sitting in her father’s seat at an official G-20 event after he had left the room.

Trump said he’d been proud of her since “day one,” and offered a rare, self-deprecating assessment of the challenges he’s added to her life.

“If she weren’t my daughter, it would be so much easier for her,” he said with laugh, adding: “That might be the only bad thing she has going, if you want to know the truth.”