Chinese social media users have mocked Donald Trump with an AI-generated video showing overweight Americans working in factories.
A viral 30-second clip shows a series of miserable-looking rotund Americans slowly sewing garments and building smartphones on crowded shop floors.
The video, which is set to Chinese music, is called “make America great again” and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
edit: added youtube link
China trolls Trump with…
Oh damn
Chinese social media users
Eh.
The 2nd half of the article also mentions an AI generated song released by China’s state run media.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-04-03/-Liberation-Day-or-a-price-to-pay--1CgrB0bz7by/index.html
Now we’re talking
Yes, capitalism is a miserable slave system. Nobody should be forced to waste their lives in some sweatshop regardless of nationality, weight, etc.
The current version sucks
But that’s because everyone needs to just get all their coworkers and make a new company that is a Union used to share all the profits
Another reason moving factory jobs here wouldn’t make any sense is that we don’t have universal healthcare so the employer has to pay the workers insurance costs.
You do realize that employers do pay a share of the healthcare cost in other countries too? They are just not given as many choices about it as in the US.
Lol yeah the choice here is be broke or die
Oh boy the choice to pay 450$ a month or have my whole family bankrupted by a procedure!
Oh you have the 450$ a month plan? Enjoy still getting ripped off by the scummiest industry in America.
I imagine a lot of Americans give birth at home to reduce costs.
Perhaps I’m just cheap
Well a quick Google search says an at home birth cost 3000-9000 out of pocket. Thought that was a lot until I saw this. “Giving birth costs $18,865 on average, including pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care, according to the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Health System Tracker.” (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/health-insurance/how-much-does-it-cost-to-have-a-baby/)
Amazing how our society has found a way to bill us for literally becoming alive.
Officials are like “whys nobody having kids??” Meanwhile I don’t even have enough cash to cover the fucking birth.
😬 not to be smug, but in Belgium and in most of the world it’s 300 euros
You’re not smug. You’re just living in a reasonable country.
That’s cute that you think $450 a month gets you an insurance plan. At that price it’s subsidized by somebody.
My employer sponsored plan costs me $300 a month and they pay $1200 a month. It’s still high deductible. It still covers next to nothing. My wife’s necessary life saving meds still hit the deductible each year, costing me several thousand dollars additionally.
My wife and I have a deductible of 9,000 - It pretty much means I’ll hope a broken toe heals correctly and not see a doctor. . It didnt and now hurts most of the time. I have food and gas money tho.
3300/6600 here. 6000/12000 out of pocket maximum though.
I’m basically dinged for 3300 whenever I need health services other than a yearly physical or an eye exam.
Every january we drop 3300 on meds for my wife and she gets eaten alive with copays for all her specialist visits.
The $1000 deductible plan my employer offers costs $1062/month for family and you still pay $40 per visit as a copay, and the employer is still dropping that $1500/month - so you’re effectively paying $30,744 to insure a family of 3 and that’s not all-in on expenses. Plus since $1000 is a “low” deductible you don’t get to keep basically anything you put into your FSA, unless you know you’re gonna use it all. Why medical expenses are ever subject to taxes is beyond me. The whole thing should be single payer… we could probably operate on a third of the budget we have today without giving any worker providing care to patients any kind of pay cut. The middle men (insurance) do very well.
They can only make profits off of something like 20-25% of overall revenue, the rest must be spent on “providing and improving” patient care. Hiring bean counters to make sure you maximize your revenue and reject as many costly applicants as possible is part of the “providing and improving” part, so they spend substantially less than 75% of their revenue on actual treatment.
Good Lord what a dystopian future we live in. I was born in the 70s when the universe was fairly normal and the dream was still something you could achieve. I’m kinda glad I’m old and won’t see how bad it will get here.
Not my point. Obviously the US system is complete shit but the healthcare cost is still part of the cost of labor for production of goods in other countries too.
Yeah no shit but in other countries you don’t have insurance companies and a laundry list of middlemen skimming half the revenue from your payments before a doctor even sees you.
Difference is you don’t have to worry about medical issues if you lose your job cause it’s not tied to your employment
Healthcare IIRC is free in China. I am not sure whether something changed or not but it was free of cost.
I’m sorry, do you genuinely think that free means we don’t pay for it? Taxes
In US you have to pay tax as well as pay extra for insurance. The insurance is not a full insurance as well. There is copay and a certain value below which insurance does not even start. Its a scam.
And the insurance can boot you off, or refuse to cover you if you’re too expensive.
So if you got cancer, and had to spend a million dollars to treat it, your insurance could just go “okay, your treatment is too expensive, we’re not covering that, you’ll have to pay for this yourself”.
It used to be worse. Many years ago, they could outright decide not to cover some medical conditions of yours, deeming them to be “pre-existing”. So if you had diabetes, sorry, that’s a pre-existing condition. We don’t cover those.
Nail in the coffin is that Americans spend more money on healthcare, per capita, than most other countries, without marked improvement in care/outcomes.
Yup. Majority of US lives in 3rd world conditions so the oligarchy can live like literal Pharaohs.
And do you not realize that the private insurance you pay for also pays for others insurance, if others don’t pay their insurance money your premiums go up to compensate for it
“‘Right-to-work’ means freedom and choice,” a Boston Globe op-ed explains. “As housing costs rise, some people are choosing to live on the road instead,” a Fox Business headline states. “If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice,” reads Joe Biden’s campaign platform. We’re told repeatedly that “freedom of choice” is essential to a robust economy and human happiness. Economists, executives, politicians, and pundits insist that, the same way consumers shop for TVs, workers can choose their healthcare plan, parents can choose their kids’ school, and gig-economy workers can choose their own schedules and benefits.
While this language is superficially appealing, it’s also profoundly deceitful. The notion of “choice” as a gateway to freedom and a sign of societal success isn’t a neutral call for people to exercise some abstract civic power; it’s free-market capitalist ideology manufactured by libertarian and neoliberal think tanks and their mercenary economists and media messaging nodes. Its purpose: to convince people that they have a choice while obscuring the economic factors that ensure they really don’t: People can’t “choose” to keep their employer-provided insurance if they’re fired from their jobs or “choose” to enroll their kids in private school if they can’t afford the tuition.
In this episode, we examine the rise of “choice” rhetoric, how it cravenly appeals to our vanity, and how US media has uncritically adopted the framing–helping the right erode social services while atomizing us all into independent, self-interested collections of “choices.”
We are joined by Jessica Stites, executive editor of In These Times.
Yay! We get to choose how to pay a ridiculous price something that’s free in other countries! Yay, choice!
give them maga hats, made in china.
I swear to sweet little 9lb 5 ounce Baby Jesus…
I have zero idea why China hasn’t slapped a 1,000% tarrif on any MAGA goods or anything that supports American conservative movements.
China makes all that shit, it’s a no brainer
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake
It would be highlighting a “mistake” not interrupting it.
China has everything to gain from a weakened America. These tariffs will hurt China short term. Long term it’s America that will be hurt the most.
Won’t hurt china short term too, Americans are stock piling products from china. Even SKorea, Samsung report records sales due to stock piling. The people hurt will be Americans who buy dirt cheap china product to rebrand and sell in US at astronomical prices. The tariff tax on Americans by Trump will eat into their profit. They may probably just raise prices.
We just bought a car because of this shit (South Korean, naturally)
Yes.
But slapping an insane tarrif on MAGA hats doesn’t change that.
It just hurts MAGA even more.
I really don’t understand, do you people think if the price of a MAGA hat 10x, they’ll stop buying it?
Do you think trump will start making it in America?
He’d jack the price up 10x more, keep that, and say China is attacking MAGA
they are probably already marked up more than 10x.
This only works if someone else can’t make the hats for less than 10x the price China can. These aren’t something special. Any har company in the world with red fabric and yellow thread can do it.
Same concept still applies.
No, it’s literally the opposite…
people keep using this ‘interrupting your enemy’ phrase incorrectly and it’s really tiresome.
it’s like, “hey, your enemy is destroying your country, do something!” and braindead meme junkies are like “well actually, don’t interrupt your enemy…” smh
ig it gives them permission to do nothing… it grants validation for passivity.
That would be an export tax, which companies would then pass along.
Tariffs are a gov taxing its own people for things they import, without the involvement of the foreign exporter or country at all.
But yeah.
it is basically fancy GST,VAT.
because when the u.s. destroys its global reputation, the dollar’s stability, relations with every ally, and itself from within----the prc wins. big.
Unless China devolves into civil war they’ve already won. The future is theirs.
Tarrifs are on imports, no one in China is importing MAGA merch. Maybe you mean export tax?
trump himself has put a tariff of like 130% on those hats already.truly dngaf.
That’s not how tariffs work.
The chinese MAGA hats are going from China to the U.S., not the other way around.
Edit: That, it turns out, is how tariffs work as well. TIL.
https://www.fulfill.com/glossary/export-tariff
It never gets old having people with zero idea what Im talking about, confidently tell me they don’t know what I’m talking about…
Like, I fully understand that not everyone knows everything.
But why do you all assume that you personally know everything, so when you run into something you’re not familiar with, you just insist the other person is wrong?
Is public education the last couple decades just this cooked that kids don’t know how to Google anything?
You just say whatever is in your head in the moment, and if someone smarter takes the time you might learn something, but most of the time just downvote and stop replying?
It’s not just you, I’m fucking terrified for society. People acting like you is why trump is president and America sucks.
Fucking be better bro
I think it’s fair to say most people didn’t know shit about tarrifs until recently, then got told “no, tariffs are paid by the IMPORTER, not the exporting country”. The word “tariff” right now is assumed to mean “import tariff” as that’s how the word is commonly being used, so if you mean “export tariff” it may be a good idea to explicitly say it instead of getting upset when people don’t know what you mean.
Daddy, chill.
I stand corrected.
I thought tariffs were on imports only. Can there be export tariffs? Well, TIL.
And lol no. You can’t say that Trump is in power because of me. And so for assuming that much, I’ll say that this is why Trump won - because of pointless emotional reactions that cause division, like yours. So, let’s say we’re even.
Do consider that regardless of a tariff being export/import companies will generally pass the cost onto the consumer. So in general all tariffs are import tariffs by proxy.
This is hilarious except that the factories aren’t here, and to every MAGAts’ surprise, they can’t appear overnight.
But it’s more than just that. The factories will never be built if industry leaders aren’t sure the situation is stable.
No one will invest a billion dollars building factories and setting up supply lines if the tariffs could go away tomorrow. They would lose their investment. The only way they would commit all that money is if they know the tariffs are here to stay.
And if there’s one thing we know about Donny it’s that he’s a fucking idiot. And it’s there’s two things we know about him it’s that he’s inconsistent and will bow to flattery. Only his most stubborn followers believe he’ll actually stick to things as they are right now, meaning the desire to invest locally will never materialize.
Trump’s stated reason for the tariffs (bringing industry back to the US) will never happen under his leadership. The only thing this will cause is pain and poverty for the American people.
Edit: And to prove this, mere hours after typing it the tariffs have been ‘paused’ for another 90 days. There’s no stability. No one would invest that kind of money into building factories in the US only for this to happen… again.
Even if he would keep things stable for the remainder of his term that is still not even close to enough time for the majority of factories to be built, start production and reach profitability and it is extremely unlikely that his successor would keep the tariffs around unchanged too.
I don’t really understand the need to bring industry in your own country, if another country does it cheaper.
The only reason I can think of is independence. Limiting others their power over you.
But purely economically? It’s a waste of resources.
Who will do these jobs anyways? For what income? What can they learn at these jobs? Why would they waste their own opportunity of living in a wealthy economy just to do a job that someone without education and far lower costs can do?
These jobs are temporarily, the next generation won’t do those. Then the factories move again to another poor country.
Which is a good thing. This is how we develop the whole world.
When the whole world is developed, there will be no need for such braindead jobs.
If you need tariffs to get those jobs at your location, you’re just being inefficient.
But that’s economically. Can’t trust other countries until we’re all more united. And the current era is not making that look promising.
It’s not just because he’s an idiot. He also said explicitly that the tariffs are part of a negotiation that he will use to get concessions. So he intends to bargain them away which would render any industrial tariff-based investments useless.
Playing the long game bro. Things gonna be so dope in the US in 50 years. We will be an isolated Arian labor economy breathing in pure sulfur and working in factories to produce goods for oligarchs on their yachts.
FYI “Aryan” is the word you’re looking for. “Arian” is an early Christian sect decried as heretical in the later Roman Empire
As long as they are both white, its probably fine man.
The historical Arians were a pretty diverse group, much like the early Christian church in general. Arius, the person whose teachings the Arians were named after, was North African, and there were Arians throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
The people unironically calling themselves Aryan are always the most rat faced, degenerate, inbred fucks. It’s hilarious. They probably delude themselves into believing they’re Aryan so they can ignore the rat faced inbreeding.
Haha, believable except for the part about oligarchs being on yachts.
In 50 years they will be in habitats in orbit or on other planets, free from pesky laws or crumbling climate. The ocean is going to be a stagnant, warm swamp of stinking algae and dead fish.
Which is why, generally, taxing wealth and having the state invest it in supportive infrastructure and subsidising is the preferred option for developed economies that want manufacturing (back).
Sweeping, protectionist tariffs are usually a painful measure of necessity, if you have an economy without any developed industrial or service sectors, where initial investments are basically impossible due there being no taxable wealth and no market incentives, because of global players always being more profitable and cheaper, than any beginning industry that has to go through growth processes and learning experiences. (More selective tariffs or outright import/export bans of course also have their place for a multitude of political reasons, e.g. the EU not wanting a lot of artificially cheap and lower-health-standards US meat)
Yeah I don’t think Cheeto and Elmo will see it the same. They’ll see this and think that this is awesome, this could be the American plebs slaving away to make wealth for the rich few, this is great!
Honestly I’m having a hard time “getting” this as a dig.
This looks like a lot of typical, existing midwest industrial work we already have in the US, with typical miserable midwesterners. I mean, we don’t do it on the same scale as China, but this isn’t some alien world being portrayed here. I’ve worked in places like this.
I mean, if you’ve ever been in an american factory, this is pretty much what 90% of them look like. No need for lame AI.
I work in a factory in the US, and the vast majority of my coworkers at least don’t appear overweight. Granted, a pretty big percentage of them are immigrants, so maybe that skews the numbers compared to the general population.
It’s not quite to this level, but yeah. Being a sedentary worker like this makes it easier to become overweight or obese. It’s not just America, though, I’ve seen it in Mexico too, and I have no reason to believe Canada would be any different.
The goal is to use AI and robotics to bring manufacturing back, they never promise jobs so much as building it here. The wealthy classes don’t need you anymore like a horse after the car was invented.
Found the video on nitter:
https://nitter.net/_MariaZakharova/status/1909980522471633058#m
YT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn5RamAEt3E
Your video is from a russian propagandist (I am assuming you didn’t mean to link her).
No, I really didn’t lol. It’s the first real one that came up on nitter and I never go there usually, so I wouldn’t know. Not surprised that’s who would come up first on X though. I appreciate you calling it out and informing me.
A Russian propagandist as the first result is really telling how we got here.
Tech companies have so much to pay for.
Hey! The workers in the cell phone factory aren’t that fat!
84 per cent
How much is that per dime?
The black guy in the video just does not give a fuck.
I mean, what sort of a psychopath do you have to be to give a single fuck about working in manufacturing?
Yeah, he definitely has the right idea.
Are they trying to say it’s inherently miserable to work in a factory? So let Chinese workers do it instead of Americans?
It shouldn’t be miserable to work in a factory. The overhead pneumatic drill shown towards the end is just like a drill I used when I worked in a factory one summer in Chicago. It was perfectly safe, and the people I worked with were well compensated. (I was not, because I was only 16.)
I think people in China might have this attitude because to them, it usually is unsafe, miserable, and underpaid. There is no proper unionization in China, and no OSHA, so it’s always bad.
In 2019, when I visited a Chinese factory for work, the assembly line was tight enough that all the workers bumped elbows constantly. One person had a very loud compressed air tube to clean off components, and wore hearing protection and safety glasses. The person next to them had no hearing protection. Another person was testing blindingly bright LED shop lights, and wore sunglasses, but the people next to them had no protection. This would have been considered totally unsafe in the US.
I doubt much manufacturing will return to the US, but if it does, then even by 2025 standards it wouldn’t be as bad as in China. With OSHA gutted by the current Republican administration, it’s getting worse, but we still have more worker’s rights than workers in China.
The way capitalism works, the manufacturing won’t return until the conditions are so monstrously cost-saving as to be as bad as China’s.
The conditions will worsen until manufacturing returns.
We also have about a 1/5th of the population. Labors cheap in China comparatively because there’s so much of it.
I think people in China might have this attitude because to them, it usually is unsafe, miserable, and underpaid. There is no proper unionization in China, and no OSHA, so it’s always bad.
Do you really think Trump won’t be shipping union organizers off to CECOT? “Next they came for the trade unionists,” after all.
Yes, I think he will (except the ones that fall over to threats, and give in to 47’s demands).
But that’s not the point. It’s possible to have a safe factory staffed by happy, well-paid workers. If it were actually true that manufacturing would return to the US as a result of the tariffs, that manufacturing shouldn’t be considered an inherently bad thing.
And the thing is, when magats talk about manufacturing, that’s what they’re envisioning.
That said, sewing is generally understood to be shit work in manufacturing
Wait until Drumpf throws a fit over this, after he himself releasing his own version of the AI Gaza bearded ladies.
Mocking MAGA is fine with me, but fucking China was once the leader in obesity and cancer growth. I am uncertain if they still lead.
Growth is doing a lot of work in that sentence. I’m not debating the actual numbers of each of these countries, but if 50% of your population is obese it’s practically impossible to double while if it’s 10% doubling isn’t that crazy.
