Trump assassination as Business Opportunity Fist T-shirts sell in US and China

(Hong Kong) Hours after the assassination of former US President Donald Trump, a picture of him with a bloodied face and a raised fist greeting supporters was printed into a T-shirt for sale on China's Taobao.com and online and physical stores in the United States. A few hours later, however, no seller of the T-shirts could be found on Taobao.

The South China Morning Post reported that Trump was shot at around 6.15pm local time on Saturday (July 13) (6.15am Singapore time Sunday), and when US President Joe Biden spoke about it at around 8pm that night, Chinese manufacturers were ready to mass produce T-shirts themed on the shooting, responding faster than many governments. By 8:40 p.m., the first T-shirts were listed on Taobao.

"As soon as we saw the news of the shooting, we put our T-shirts on Taobao.com, even though we haven't even printed them yet," said a 25-year-old Taobao seller. Within three hours, we received more than 2,000 orders from China and the United States."

To make a new product, the seller's factory in Hefei province downloads a photo and presses the print button, taking an average of one minute to complete a T-shirt. "For this year's U.S. presidential election, we only made souvenirs of Donald Trump because he has a high chance of winning and is popular among Chinese netizens," she said.

Us businesses have also launched T-shirts featuring a picture of Trump with a fist, along with slogans such as "Shooting makes me stronger" and "I will never stop fighting for America."

Photos uploaded to social media platform X on Sunday show the shirts being sold in stores in New Jersey and people wearing them for photos. An online store also promised to donate all profits from the sale of Trump's fist T-shirts to the Trump campaign.

According to DHgate, a China-based cross-border e-commerce platform focused on the US market, the volume of election-related souvenirs has increased by more than 40 per cent every month since January, and by more than 110 per cent month-on-month in March.

Despite the business opportunities brought by Mr Trump's attack, Chinese manufacturers have begun to bring forward shipments for fear of more tariffs if he is elected. But analysts say trade between the United States and China has stabilized after a sharp decline in recent years, and with inflationary pressures in the United States, there is limited room to further reduce Chinese imports.