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9th April 2025
12:04pm BST
A new AI-generated video believed to have been created by a Chinese TikToker pokes fun at Donald Trump and America under the new tariffs.
The video shows morbidly obese 'Americans' in sweatshops and factories performing low-skilled labor work with somber Chinese music playing in the background.
Every 'American' in the video looks depressed and exhausted. The clip fades out by taking a swipe at Trump's slogan, 'Make America Great Again'.
The 32-second clip focuses on the stereotypical manufacturing jobs that have moved overseas in the last few decades, but could be return to US soil amid Trump's tariff frenzy.
@axiang67 Make america great again～#tariff #america ♬ 原创音乐 - Ben Lau
Viral videos such as this have gained traction in recent days as the two countries fight over tariffs. Both sides have been threatening the other with steep fees on imported goods in recent days.
Along with the retaliatory tariffs, a war of words has broken out after US Vice President JD Vance claimed China's economy was fuelled by 'peasants' during an interview with Fox News last week.
He said: "We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.
"What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it's based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us."
The video was posted by a TikTok user named Ben Lau on Monday.
Prior to this video, Lau's TikTok only had 1,000 followers and three other videos but after the video was reposted on X it has been viewed more than five million times.
One user commented: "Low skilled manufacturing will never come back to the US. Highly skilled manufacturing won’t come to the US because we gutted education and don’t have the highly skilled workforce."
While a second joked: "That sewing machine could be made in China."
Another said: "America will become the poorest country in the world under Trump's rule."
Those commenting were either Chinese nationals or Americans who are opposed to trump's agenda.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reacted to Vance's comments during a news conference on Trump's tariffs: "It's both astonishing and lamentable to hear this vice president make such ignorant and disrespectful remarks."
Trump escalated his trade war rhetoric on Monday, vowing to hit the Chinese economy with an additional 50 percent tariff unless they remove their own retaliatory import levy that was announced Friday.
Beijing threatened to charge a 34 percent tariff on US goods entering China in response to Trump's global tariff initiative.
The president gave China until Tuesday to stand down on their 34 percent tariff threat or face retaliation.
Trump's trade war is his strategy to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. His argument is that tariffs make Chinese imports more expensive, which incentivises American companies to produce goods domestically, thereby creating jobs and reducing reliance on foreign labor.
