Featured Image Credit: Weibo
Topics: China, Donald Trump, Artificial Intelligence, JD Vance
Gerrard Kaonga
Topics: China, Donald Trump, Artificial Intelligence, JD Vance
The tariff war between the US and China has entered a new playing field as AI-generated images and videos mocking Donald Trump and JD Vance continue to be spread online.
Earlier this month, the world waited to see how Donald Trump’s economic plan for the US would work and what it would ultimately mean for global trade.
However, to everyone's disappointment, it wasn't met very well - and China in particular was one of the nations most affected by it.
Since Trump's initial tariff announcement, China have responded in kind, with the two countries quickly descending into a war of words and then more tariffs...things really snowballed.
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25 percent tariffs had already been applied on goods from China, leading to the government hiking tariffs by 34 percent (to a combined total of 54 percent) on Trump's 'Liberation Day'.
This eventually resulted in Trump raising the tariff on China to 145 percent, and then to 245 percent, while pausing the tariff plans for all other countries for 90 days, as China raised tariffs on all US goods to 125 percent, while also reducing exports of rare earth minerals.
And the US stock market is already feeling the brunt of it, with the new restrictions set to cost consumers billions of dollars.
While all of this seems rather concerning economically, over on social media, people have simply been ridiculing Trump and the vice president JD Vance.
AI images of Trump putting mascara on Vance while the pair sit on a bed together in a pink room has been shared all over Chinese social media.
Another image of Vance putting on eyeliner also circulated, with one person calling him 'eyeliner man'.
But funnily enough, this isn’t the first time AI images have started circulating to mock Americans over the ongoing trade war.
Earlier this month, a video went viral on TikTok and Twitter as it mocked the idea that Trump’s tariffs would result in an American industrial revolution, with factories being in America rather than overseas.
The AI video showed a number of people, many of whom are overweight, sitting at sewing machines as they work to make clothes in a factory.
Each person also looked particularly unhappy, with the video's caption reading: "Make America great again～#tariff #america."
The faces of sorrow continue later in the clip as a line of other people are shown creating mobile phones.
While another video featured Trump, Elon Musk and Vance all working to attach black laces to sneakers.
The video ends with a stinging jab at Trump’s economic policies, sarcastically saying 'Make America Great Again’, a quote right out of Trump’s presidential campaign book.