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As Americans fret about what their future looks like amidst Donald Trump’s heightening trade wars, the people of China have a suggestion: get used to sweatshops.
A wild AI-generated post depicting schlubby Americans toiling in dingy factories has gone viral on Chinese social media before leaking out onto US trending tabs. It pokes fun at Trump’s so-called “reindustrialization” gambit to bring factories back to the US — and anyone foolish enough to believe the billionaire’s policies will benefit American workers.
Once it hit the US net, the clip clearly resonated with frustrated Americans.
“Fake… no mobility scooters,” wrote one Reddit user, playing into the stereotype of the overweight American consumer. “Bold to assume anyone can afford those (or has health insurance at all) when this day arrives,” replied another.
In contrast to their more critical counterparts, right-wing social media users can’t seem to agree if sweatshops represent a desirable return to masculinity, or a backslide into dystopian drudgery for US workers.
“Make the sock” goes one AI-generated meme, which shows a Patagonia-vested finance bro weeping over a garment machine as a massive frowning portrait of Trump looks on.
“People [are] turning on President Trump and Elon Musk after they have sacrificed so much for you,” groused another poster on X-formerly-Twitter. “They are already rich af and don’t need to do any of this!”
If nothing else, the Chinese meme highlights a notable shift in attitudes as US-China relations crumble.
Americans have long stereotyped their fellow Chinese worker as human drones hammering out cheap junk, overlooking the thriving sweatshop ecosystem that still exists in their own country. Now the shoe’s on the other foot, as economists warn that Trump’s plan could decimate the already-struggling American working class while ramping up the control corporate oligarchs have over their lives.
Case in point, former hedge fund billionaire turned Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, recently intoned that federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE could find jobs in sparkly new factories built thanks to Trump’s tariffs.
Of course, that all overlooks the reality that US manufacturing is in far better shape than Trump’s rhetoric suggests. It’s currently the second largest manufacturing base in the world, making up almost 16 percent of global output. While it’s true that America has outsourced the labor of producing cheap consumer goods to the developing world, US manufacturing has shifted to high-tech industries like pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and semiconductors.
If Trump’s manufacturing plans come to fruition — and that’s a big if — the US won’t be returning to the post-war nirvana of the 1950s. If anything, it’s more likely to evoke the Gilded Age of American industrialization, when children toiled in mines and industry moguls rigged elections. But hey, at least the cheap plastic junk at Walmart won’t say “made in China” anymore.
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