You Won't Catch Melania Trump Ordering From This Popular Coffee Chain

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It's difficult to picture Melania Trump and her generally stoic demeanor toting a paper to-go cup with her name scrawled on it in Sharpie (although the Trump White House features its fair share of Sharpie writing). The first lady isn't opposed to coffee, but you will not see her sipping anything from Starbucks. "I drink coffee, but I don't drink Starbucks," she told DuJour magazine in a 2016 interview. At the time, the soon-to-be first lady still lived in Trump Tower in New York. The 5th Avenue high-rise, notably, had a Starbucks outlet on the second floor. The DuJour interview transpired a few months before her husband, Donald Trump, won his first presidential election in November 2016.

It's possible that the coffee brand's image just doesn't mesh with the former model's high-fashion, often monochrome looks, yet perhaps there are other reasons why Melania eschews the popular chain. For one, the first lady's diet is exceedingly healthy. Though she revealed to DuJour that her son, Barron, enjoys Starbucks' Frappuccinos, the 45 grams of sugar packed into a medium (grande) coffee Frappuccino doesn't align with Melania's daily drink ritual, which consists of a nutrient-packed morning smoothie. Fast-food-style blended coffee beverages that chains like Starbucks champion probably don't appeal to her lingering European sensibilities, either. After all, Slovenia, her country of origin, has a rich, deeply entrenched coffee culture. FLOTUS also spent part of her early modeling career in the mid-90s living in Paris — another monolith of café culture.

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Donald Trump isn't a Starbucks fan either. The POTUS has been known to avoid coffee, instead getting his caffeine fix from up to a dozen Diet Cokes a day as part of his famously weird eating regimen. The rift between Trump and Starbucks, however, stems from politics. While on the campaign trail for his first presidential run in 2015, the MAGA chief called for a Starbucks boycott, claiming that the company's minimalist red holiday season cups were anti-Christmas. He even brought up the aforementioned Trump Tower outlet, hinting he would probably shake loose the lucrative lease. 

Several Starbucks customers weren't too happy with their morning cuppa provider being Trump's tenant either. Campaigns and petitions in 2016, including one where thousands of participants pledged to buy Starbucks gift cards to convince the company to cut ties with the newly elected 45th President for his negative comments towards various marginalized groups (per Fortune). There were Starbucks outlets in multiple Trump properties around that time.

Although Starbucks didn't sever ties, in 2017, its CEO, Howard Schultz, announced that in response to Trump's immigration ban, the company would hire 10,000 refugees worldwide. Schultz went on to dabble in the 2020 presidential election, which led to Trump, who was also contesting, to tweet, "I only hope that Starbucks is still paying me their rent in Trump Tower!" The Trump Tower Starbucks weathered all of those clashes, ultimately shutting its doors during the pandemic in 2020. The last of its signage disappeared from the 5th Avenue skyscraper in 2022.