Where’s Trump-Gifted Diamond Ring? Warren, Blumenthal Press Admin for Answers After Tariff Exemption

Senators concerned that “the President has in fact accepted the ring as part of a quid pro quo agreement to reduce diamond tariffs.” Text of Letter (PDF) Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) questioned the White House, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) about the location and ownership of the watch-sized 18-karat gold ring encrusted with 321 diamonds and 75 gemstones gifted to President Trump by Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), noting the “unseemly appearance of this transaction.” In June, AWDC gifted this ring to Trump just weeks before the President exempted European natural diamonds from Section 301 tariffs, making Belgium’s diamond industry the only major player with zero-percent tariff access to the U.S. market. In August, Senators Warren and Blumenthal wrote to AWDC and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks, probing them on what seemed to be a “cartoonish bribery attempt” that raised fresh concerns about the President’s record of distributing special treatment to giant corporations and wealthy insiders who come bearing gifts. The disposition of the ring is currently unknown. “In June 2026, AWDC presented the ring to U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White…[who] posted that he could not ‘wait to present this ring to President Trump and have it on display in the Oval Office.’ As of July 2, 2026, the White House confirmed that the ring had not yet been presented to President Trump. To date, we are not aware of any public reporting indicating the current location of the ring,” wrote the senators. The gift may have been processed through one of two different channels. Gifts given by anyone other than a foreign government to the President, the White House, or the U.S. government are first screened, categorized, and evaluated by the White House Gift Office. If a gift is made to the President personally, it may be retained by the President, while those made out to the government of the United States are cataloged and distributed to the appropriate government agency. As a public-private partnership, AWDC may have acted on behalf of a foreign government, in which case the ring is subject to the Foreign Emoluments Clause and therefore should have been processed through different channels. “The circumstances in which AWDC gifted this ring, and the lack of clarity about its disposition, raise significant questions about whether the President has in fact accepted the ring as part of a quid pro quo agreement to reduce diamond tariffs,” wrote the senators. The senators demanded that the White House, GSA, and NARA release information about the ring and its whereabouts by October 19, 2026. Senator Warren has long conducted oversight on the Trump family’s apparent attempts to profit from their government roles: In August 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal pressed Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks over the decision to gift an 18-karat gold, diamond-encrusted ring to President Trump right before the Trump administration announced tariff exemptions on European diamonds. In August 2026, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, and Kim probed Korean company Base Group’s mysterious $2 million payment to President Trump while under a trade-related investigation by the Trump administration, raising concerns about pay-to-play politics and bribery. In a new letter to Base Group Chairman Kim Sung-jip, the lawmakers pressed the company for answers on the suspiciously timed payment. In July 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal, along with Representative Stansbury, opened an investigation into reports that Softbank Group (Softbank) recently donated $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library — the largest publicly disclosed contribution to the Library and a possible attempt to curry political favor. In March 2026, Senator Warren released a new response from the Department of Defense (DoD) indicating that there are no effective processes in place to prevent possible conflicts of interest and corruption involving President Donald Trump’s family and the Department’s awarding of defense contracts. In a new letter, she and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on this failure and pushed for answers regarding Trump’s sons’ latest investment in Powerus, a drone company. In September 2025, Senator Warren pressed the CEO of Rolex on why the company invited President Trump to be Rolex’s guest at the finals of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship earlier this month — just weeks after President Trump announced 39 percent tariffs on Swiss imports. In July 2025, Senator Warren pushed the CEOs of Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet , on their attempts to secure billion-dollar tax handouts paid for by ripping away health care coverage, food assistance, and other services from millions of American families. In May 2025, Senator Warren wrote to Pilgrim’s Pride and JBS USA (the parent company of Pilgrim’s Pride), pushing them to explain Pilgrim’s Pride’s $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, the single largest donation — bigger than Amazon, Meta, and Google’s donations combined. In April 2025, Senator Warren pressed Tim Cook about reports that spoke with Trump administration officials to win an exemption to Trump’s China tariffs, worth billions of dollars for Apple. In April 2025, on the 100th day of the second Trump administration, Senator Warren read 100 reports of corruption from President Trump’s term into the Congressional record, pointing to all the ways President Trump and his family have used the presidency to enrich themselves, give favors to donors, and make it more difficult to hold him accountable for corruption. ###