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Reports: Shopify, Stripe and PayPal Drop Trump Sites’ Support in Wake of Capitol Riot

In response to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Shopify has taken the Trump Organization and Trump campaign stores offline, according to The Wall Street Journal. In combination with bans from social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter and other commerce platforms such as Stripe and PayPal, the Trump brand’s retail operations have been severely constrained.

The sites, shop.donaldjtrump.com and trumpstore.com, sold official Trump branded merchandise, including both MAGA apparel and memorabilia. They were taken down on Jan. 7, after the Shopify trust and safety team decided that Trump’s comments during the riot violated the platform’s policy prohibiting retailers from promoting or supporting organizations or people that promote violence.

“Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence,” said Shopify in a statement. “Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause.”

Some investors fear backlash from Trump’s supporters, which led to a 1.77% dip in premarket trading for Shopify shares at the start of Jan. 11, according to Seeking Alpha. However, the change in price barely impacted Shopify’s overall 52-week return rate of  170%.

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Stripe’s actions also could impact Trump’s ability to sell products through alternate channels. Stripe cut off the president’s campaign account for violating its policies against encouraging violence, according to The Wall Street Journal, removing a key method for the campaign to handle card-based transactions.

PayPal took similar action by removing a group raising money for Trump supporters called Joy In Liberty, according to CNET. Additionally, GoFundMe removed all pages created by Trump supporters who used the site to raise money to travel to Washington, D.C. for the riot, according to BuzzFeed News. While neither action was specifically directed at Trump or his businesses, their actions make it seem unlikely that the platforms would be willing to play parts in the president’s retail operations.

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