President Donald Trump wants to bring American manufacturing back in a way that remodes the economy of the United States so that it looks more like China. The campaign, which has led to a commercial war that increases rapidly with China, has given a broad fodder of social networks to Chinese and American observers alike.
When announcing a series of radical tariffs in a movement called “Day of Liberation,” Trump said last week that this will lead to factories to transfer production to the US coasts, promoting the economy of the United States after “foreign leaders have stolen our works, foreign cheats have been looted our factories and foreign scavengers have decelerated our American dream once our American dream once award beautiful”.
In a real social position on Wednesday, Trump announced that tariffs on assets imported from China to 125% are increasing, above 104% that entered into force on the same day, due to “the lack of respect that China has demonstrated to the markets of the world.”
Memes manufacturers and Chinese government officials have begun to point out the irony of the manufacturing pivot driven by Trump’s rate through the satire generated by AI and political cartoons that have percolated online, with many US users who drive the jokes.
A video that makes fun of the Trump administration attempt with American manufacturing has accumulated millions of visits in X since a user published it on Tiktok earlier this week. The clip, apparently generated with artificial intelligence, showed workers sewing garments and gathering mobile devices in a factory, followed by a screen that promotes: “Make the United States again is great.”
Others refounded an old political cartoon that represents Trump, with almost everything in the raffle, including the demand of the president and the American flag that is raising, labeled as “made in China”, all except Trump’s own gaseous product, which is labeled as “made in the US.”
Chinese official accounts have also had fun. Last weekend, Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, published a meme that appeared to make fun of Trump for imposing tariffs on several Antarctic islands largely sterile inhabited by penguins instead of people.
Some have been more subtle with their criticism. On Monday, the Chinese embassy published a clip of a 1987 speech pronounced by President Ronald Reagan, whose economic agenda influenced the conventional republican economy greatly. In it, Reagan defends free trade.
“You will see, at first when someone says:” We are going to impose tariffs on foreign imports, “they seem to be doing something patriotic by protecting US products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short time, it works. But only for a short time,” says Reagan in the clip, before launching a list of consequences.
Trump calls to adopt domestic manufacturing when China has pressed so that its economy is more like that of the United States with the aim of reducing its economic dependence on exports, China has had difficulties to promote national consumption, expand subsidies for appliances such as microwave and rice kitchens, as well as smartphones and other electronic devices.
On the contrary, Trump’s vision for the United States, whose high consumption of goods manufactured in Chinese has helped boost China’s economic increase, implies an industrial rebirth for everything, from aluminum refining to naval construction.
At least in the short term, both the American and Chinese objectives are “Dreams of Pipes,” said Ian Johnson, formerly the main member of China’s studies in the Foreign Relations Council.
“China has been trying for decades to promote consumption or make people consume more, but for a variety of reasons why the Chinese are not willing to do so,” Johnson said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, citing the lack of social security network that drives high levels of personal savings.
“The government has not changed the structural problems that contain consumption,” said Johnson. “Then, until they do that, that will not work.”
On the United States side, Johnson said: “It’s hard because the government is trying to go back to the clock and I don’t think it’s completely possible, no matter how high the rates are.”
“You will never bring back, for example, manufacture of footwear, or things like that, or manufacturing textiles to the United States, because it will still be too expensive, even if you put 100%tariffs,” he said.
Johnson said some American manufacturing works have gone forever and will not return. And in the case of China, its objective is more reasonable, but it would require great changes in the way in which the economy and society are structured. ”
Trump has alluded to his vision of the American industrial rebirth by justifying the growing tariffs on Chinese products, starting with 20% in additional tariffs imposed in February and March, citing China’s role in the international fluk of fentanyl precursors.
Last week, he announced a 10% base rate on imports from all countries, with higher rates for dozens of specific commercial partners, particularly China. On Wednesday, he announced that he will stop higher tariffs for 90 days in some commercial partners who have not taken reprisals, although the 10% reference rate will remain in force for all countries.
On Tuesday, before Trump announced the new rate of 125%, China promised to “take countermeasures to safeguard their own interests.”
“The threat of the United States to increase tariffs on China is an error in an error, exposing even more the coercive nature of the United States,” said the Ministry of Commerce in a statement. “If the United States insists in its own way, China will fight until the end.”
In a publication about Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump said China “wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to start.”
“We are waiting for your call. It will happen!” He wrote.
The China Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not confirm whether any negotiation with the US. UU. It was underway.
“It seems to me that the actions of the United States do not reflect a genuine will to participate in a serious dialogue,” said the ministry spokesman Lin Jian, in a regular informative session in Beijing. “If the United States really wants to speak, it should demonstrate an attitude of equality, mutual respect and reciprocity.”
The Trump administration says that servile works would be automated in the factories of the United States, and that the Americans who work in them would do higher level tasks.
“Our Americans educated in high school, the core of our workforce, will have the greatest resurgence of work in the history of the United States to work in these high -tech factories, which are arriving in the United States,” said Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday in CBS News “Face the Nation”.
