Restaurants

Another head-scratching Trump endorsement: A sushi chain with 8 North Texas locations

For a guy who loathes raw fish, a million-dollar-plus investment is curious. But in the biggest understatement of our weary republic's history: What's new?
Sushi from Kura Sushi
Kura Sushi has nothing to do with who invests with them, but it still makes for a curious trade.

Photo by Lauren Drewes Daniels

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We’re certainly as surprised as you are by some of President Donald Trump’s endorsements lately. This one doesn’t leave us as sick to our stomachs as others, but let’s not digress.

In the president’s recent financial disclosure statement for the first quarter of 2026, Trump invested between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in a sushi restaurant with eight locations in North Texas. That’s a big bite for someone who famously prefers Quarter Pounder predictability.

‘I’m not going to eat any f***ing raw fish.’

In an incident described in the 1993 book “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” the would-be president said during a 1990 trip to Japan, “I’m not going to eat any fucking raw fish.” He had McDonald’s instead.

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Kura countered: “But what if we put it on a revolving carousel and make it more like a game of ‘Who can snatch it first?”

Ballgame.

Kura is a national “fast-food” sushi brand born in Japan with about 650 locations worldwide and 90 in the U.S. The concept is based around a conveyor belt that runs around the restaurant, past every table. Diners grab small plates of sushi as they pass on the belt, making seating a bit strategic. At the end of meals, the tab is based on how many plates you have. It’s fun for the kids.

Was this a typo?

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The internet — as it’s wont to do — speculates the buy was a mistake; that the president perhaps meant to invest in another company with a similar name, Fujikura. Sort of like the 2020 “Four Seasons” fiasco, where Trump’s team booked a landscaping company for a press conference instead of a swank hotel.

But, closer inspection of the financial documents, and a quick call to our broker (jk — we’re journalists, what’s that? We just looked it up) reveals that this particular order states “Your Broker Acted As Agent.” We think that means someone made the call for Trump. That someone might get their credit card cut up soon.

But that all makes sense because on Feb. 2, the day this order was executed, the President of the United States was likely busy with a pending government shutdown and managing a group of warships in the Arabian Sea. Right?

One of many

Regardless, this doesn’t mean you should vent any potential political frustrations on the restaurant: businesses have no control over who buys their stock. Besides, you’d be busy if you set out to boycott one of the 3,642 trades totaling $750 million executed in the first quarter of this year by Trump. And his agents.

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