At a state banquet in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on May 14, Trump raised a stemmed glass during a toast with Xi Jinping and appeared to take a sip, footage that immediately lit up social media and reopened a question that has followed him for two decades: does America’s most famous teetotaller actually abstain?
The White House moved fast. Communications Director Steven Cheung was categorical: “The insinuation here is false by suggesting that he would somehow compromise himself for a toast. President Trump doesn’t drink alcohol.” Former Trump adviser Bruce LeVell posted on X that the glass did not contain alcohol. Neither the White House nor Chinese officials publicly confirmed what the beverage was. Xi’s banquet menu circulated online afterward and listed two Chinese wines, a Hebei Cabernet Sauvignon and a Beijing Chardonnay, served to guests. Whether Trump’s glass held the same, or something non-alcoholic in identical stemware, nobody has said.
That ambiguity is the point. It keeps the story running. Trump has spent decades publicly linking his abstinence to the death of his older brother Fred Trump Jr., who struggled with alcoholism and died at 42. He said at a 2018 White House press conference: “I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life,” calling it “one of my only good traits.” On Theo Von’s podcast in 2024, asked whether he drank or smoked, Trump said: “No, I never have. I had a great brother who taught me a lesson.” That position has not shifted. What has shifted is the frequency with which a single glass in his hand generates global coverage.
“I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life.” Donald Trump, White House press conference, 2018
The commercial irony sitting underneath all of this is hard to miss. The Trump Organisation relaunched Trump Vodka for US pre-orders late last year, marketed as “The Great American Spirit” and distilled domestically to sidestep the import tariffs currently squeezing European spirits. Trump Winery in Virginia, valued at tens of millions of dollars, continues to operate alongside it. A Trump-branded beer pong set entered the market this year. The man who has never tasted his own product keeps expanding the portfolio, and every time he raises a glass in public, the entire thing gets relitigated.
The original Trump Vodka, launched in 2005 under licence with Drinks Americas, collapsed by 2011 after sales fell and legal disputes over unpaid royalties followed. The relaunched version is trying to build the distribution footprint the first version never managed. A Beijing toast that trended globally for two days is not the worst free marketing, whatever was in the glass.
There is a sharper contrast available. Former Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who served also as a pastor, openly acknowledged that he once occasionally drank red wine and beer. His turning point came during a UN justice mission in Mogadishu. After preaching at a fellowship service, he stopped at a restaurant inside the UN compound to buy two cans of Heineken. His international colleagues, already drinking, hid their glasses when he walked in. When he asked a Danish colleague why, the reply stayed with him: “You are the priest, and we cannot be drinking around the priest.” Osinbajo described the moment as personal conviction rather than public instruction, and has not consumed alcohol since. The story spread across Nigerian social media in late April 2026. A broader pattern this publication traced in March 2026 across Africa’s non-alcoholic category points the same direction: sobriety is no longer just a private position, it is identity, branding, and increasingly, a commercial argument in its own right.
What made the Osinbajo story land was the transparency. He said he drank, explained why he stopped, and offered a reason that had nothing to do with optics. That clarity is precisely what the Beijing footage cannot provide. When a public figure’s relationship with alcohol is fully documented, the conversation ends. When it is not, every raised glass becomes a news cycle.
Trump Vodka’s second run now has a useful datapoint: its founder’s faux-toast with the president of China just reminded the world the brand exists. Whether that translates into distribution is the next commercial question. The founder still will not be the one to tell you how it tastes.
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