A finance bro in a Patagonia vest sobbing as he sews a sock. Batman and Spiderman assembling tech products. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance stitching red hats in a factory.
These are some of the memes — many of which are AI-generated —that have been spreading on Chinese social media sites like Rednote and Weibo to mock Americans over Trump’s tariffs.
Trump has cited national security and a large trade deficit with China as reasons to raise duties on the long time rival and manufacturing hub. He also accused China of currency manipulation to offset the impact of tariffs. During Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, he said China has been charging the US 67% in duties.
One of the most viral memes, which has crossed over to American audiences on sites like TikTok and X, shows Americans in t-shirts looking sad as they sew clothes in a factory or screw cell phones together on an assembly line.
Traditional Chinese music plays over the scenes, and Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” flashes across the screen at the end of the apparently AI-generated video. One X user’s post of the viral meme has been viewed more than 7 million times, and a TikTok post of the video has been shared over 34,000 times.
The memes play on the concerns that Trump’s significant tariffs on China, and his repeated calls to reduce US reliance on foreign goods and shore up American manufacturing, will hurt everyday Americans and be potentially regressive. While Trump has paused tariffs on other trading partners for 90 days on Wednesday, tariffs on China now stand at 125%.
“When you wanted to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US but you lost your overpaid, cushy powerpoint / excel job and now gotta hit the assembly line,” wrote one user on X above a screenshot of “The White Lotus” character Piper looking emotional over not being able to endure living conditions in Thailand.
The fear that white collar workers might soon need to work in factories builds on comments made by politicians like US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said on Tucker Carlson’s show last Friday that fired office workers could find manufacturing jobs “to re-lever the private sector.”
“So what we are doing: on one side, the President is reordering trade. On the other side, we are shedding excess labor in the federal government and bringing down federal borrowings,” said Bessent. “And then on the other side of that, we will have the labor we need for new manufacturing.”
Other memes call out the countries Trump initially targeted in his sweeping tariffs, such as his 10% tariffs on the Heard and McDonald Islands. The group of Antarctic islands is an Australian external territory inhabited only by penguins, seals, and seabirds.
One Rednote post includes a clip of “The Penguins of Madagascar” over a news article about the tariffs on the islands. “Captain, walking into hostile environment,” the penguins in the clip say. “We’re gonna need special tactical equipments. We’re gonna face extreme peril.”
Also on Rednote, a slideshow of photos, some AI generated, depicts penguins wearing a red “Make America Go Away” hat, wielding weapons, and participating in a mass protest against Trump.
The tariff war has also generated a renewed wave of nationalism on Chinese social media site Weibo. Users are rallying behind their government’s decision to retaliate, temporarily leaving behind dissatisfactions toward the ruling party over the country’s economic downturn since the pandemic.
“Fully support,” wrote one commenter under a state media post about China raising retaliatory tariffs to 84% on the US that garnered nearly a million likes. “May 1 holiday would be spent supporting domestic products.”
Another commenter cited an ancient Chinese tale from the Qin Dynasty, that when a nation ceded five cities to a large and powerful enemy, the invader soon asked for ten cities and more. In this context, the cautionary story is being used to justify why China should not make any concessions towards the US.
A Bluesky comment perhaps best sums up how many tariff stricken Americans feel toward the long-time authoritarian rival right now: “If you told my 2024 self I’d be rooting for China to not back down, I’d have said you were crazy.”
