Barron Trump’s new venture is the same-old theft from Indigenous cultures

Some still remember Barron Trump as the unusually tall, slightly awkward teenager who appeared at his father’s 2024 presidential rally in Doral, Florida. At the time, he dressed formally; he seemed self-conscious and socially reserved. On social media, some even compared him to Gru, the protagonist of Despicable Me. Now, at 20 years old, he appears noticeably different from the young man seen two years earlier: less exposed to politics, more focused on his university studies, and more grounded in everyday student life.

As a sophomore at NYU Stern, Barron’s on the basics: systems, margins, scale. Outside class, he’s finance-maxxing: same vibe as the infamous looksmaxxing, but for money. Locked in 24/7, stacking gains. With the support of his father, who reportedly sits on the board of his new company, Barron is launching Sollos Yerba Mate, an energy drink venture founded in Florida last December. The company is now preparing for rollout across North American supermarkets this May 2026.

Another Trump nepo baby

The company is owned by Barron Trump, Spencer Bernstein and Stephen Hall, who both attended Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach at the same time as Barron, together with two other friends of theirs, Rudolfo Castello and Valentino Gomez. The company is formally registered in Florida, not far from Mar-a-Lago, where the 2022 FBI search uncovered classified documents allegedly retained after Trump’s presidency.

The launch of Sollos Yerba Mate is part of an entrepreneurial path that already started for Barron. After a brief experience in the real-estate sector and involvement in the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, which has earned him about 150 million dollars, the new project marks a further diversification of Barron’s wild business portfolio.

But Sollos Yerba Mate and its pivot into the No-Lo market feels less like rupture and more like an imitation dressed in new chromatic branding. It looks like Barron and his business associate changed the clothes, but it’s still the same-old business underneath.

The natural energy drink market, as known today, spans yerba mate-based energy drinks, cannabis-adjacent beverages, and hybrid wellness offerings, all converging into a dense, experience-driven market rather than a novel and innovative venture crew.

Capitalist appropriation of indigenous cultures

Mate, which inspires the brand identity of Sollos, is a traditional South American drink made from yerba mate, a plant native to Central and South America historically. It gained wide popularity as early as the 1600s in regions such as Argentina, the Río de la Plata basin, and Uruguay.

More than a drink, mate is a ritual that invites people to pause, share, and connect with the culture of the region in an authentic way. It used to be consumed by Guaraní communities and bordering communities as a social and energising ritual. It is now widely regarded as a natural alternative to coffee due to its stimulating properties.

Today, however, this tradition is being reinterpreted through a commercial lens and transformed into a canned beverage. Sweetened and flavored with pineapple and coconut and packaged with a “Sunshine State” aesthetic, Sollos Yerba Mate reflects the emerging trend of “smart” and “sporty” lifestyle drinks.

On Sollos Yerba Mate Instagram page, users questioned both the cultural positioning of yerba mate and the family behind the business. One user wrote:

Nah, the Trump family hates Latino people but seems to profit off our culture.

Is it available in deportation detention centers?

As Sollos Yerba Mate seeks to turn tradition into a scalable identity, drawing loosely on Argentine culture and the ritual of mate, the anti-Trump movement does not remain indifferent when seeing Trump’s son involved in such an endeavor…

Nobody can tell whether Sollos Yerba Mate will be able to establish itself in the growing soft drinks market this summer. But surely the reference to Guaraní and South American culture that Barron and his partners are leveraging may not be the right strategy to guarantee the success they are hoping for.

Featured image via El Cronista