Trade War Meets Fairy Tale: China’s Latest Trump Nickname
From "Comrade Trump" to the "Tariff Beauty," Trump has many nicknames on Chinese social media.
Welcome to this guest post from one of my favourite China-focussed writers,
.She’s been writing What’s on Weibo for over ten years, an indispensable resource to understand what’s going on in China’s social media universe.
Her work is fantastic, and occasionally the inspiration behind what we write about in RealTime Mandarin, such as last week’s post.
The best part?
Manya is finally on Substack! 🎉🔥
So it’s now easier than ever to follow her excellent work.
In last week’s RealTime Mandarin, we wrote about the impact of tariffs on China’s exporters.
So what better way to supplement your Chinese language learning content diet this week, than with Manya’s fantastic deep dive into the many entertaining nick-names of President Trump in China!
Now, over to Manya….
Trade War Meets Fairy Tale: China’s Latest Trump Nickname
As the tariff turmoil between the US and China continues, President Trump has earned himself a new nickname on Chinese social media.
Over the years, Chinese netizens have come up with many different nicknames for the American President, whose Chinese name is usually transliterated as 川普 Chuānpǔ for phonetic reasons (read more here: Why Trump Has Two Different Names in Chinese).
But Chinese netizens call Trump many other things than just Chuānpǔ. You might have come across nicknames like “Comrade Build the Country” or “Build-the-Country Trump.”
Trump as China’s “Comrade Build-the-Nation”
“Build-the-Country Trump” or “Trump the Nation-Builder” (川建国 Chuān Jiànguó) has been an online joke on Chinese social media for years, often used alongside the related nickname “Comrade Build-the-Nation” (建国同志 Jiànguó Tóngzhì).
The joke began circulating in the early days of Trump’s first presidency, though even earlier humorous memes and satirical stories were claiming Trump wasn’t truly American at all — the story goes that he was born in Zigong, Sichuan Province (四川自贡) in China.
When it was confirmed that Trump had won the presidency, proud Sichuan locals joked that he was one of their own, claiming that his Chinese name Chuānpǔ paid homage to their province, as it contained the “Chuan” from “Sichuan” (which literally means “river”). From this, an entire fabricated yet fascinating story about Trump’s Chinese roots emerged.
According to these stories circulating since late 2016, Trump’s father Fred Trump (referred to as Old Trump 老川普) was a businessman who came to China during World War II and stayed until 1947, supposedly a year after Donald’s birth. This version of events claims that Old Trump lived through both the Anti-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War while in China.
The story further claims that the Trump family lived on Guangda Street in Zigong’s Guojia’ao neighborhood (光大街郭家坳), now the site of the Salt Industry Drilling Team’s club. Trump was said to have been born there before leaving China. Zigong is known for its high-quality, expensive salt, and according to the tale, ‘Old Trump’ shipped this salt to northern China or back to the US, earning a fortune that laid the foundation for the Trump family’s future wealth — and Trump’s eventual rise to the White House.
What does this entire online fairy tale have to do with Trump’s nicknames?
When Trump was in power, it soon appeared that he was doing all kinds of things that raised eyebrows. He once said that Korea used to be part of China, and then made a series of moves — like withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords, and announcing that the US would leave UNESCO — which Chinese netizens saw as a weakening of US global influence, and therefore indirectly as a boost to China’s rising power. The trade war and Trump’s tough stance on Chinese tech companies were also, in a way, seen as forcing China into tech self-reliance, further accelerating the country’s domestic innovation.
All of this combined earned Trump the nickname “Comrade Build-the-Nation,” jokingly fuelling the idea that he was actually China’s ‘secret agent’ on a mission to undermine American imperialism and support China’s rise on the world stage.
Trump the “Tariff Beauty”
Trump’s latest nickname incorporates some of the same sentiments that led to him being jokingly called a “comrade” of China.
Amid ongoing tariff tensions, some Chinese netizens, including some creators of meme-style ‘nation personification’ videos (鬼畜动画) on Douyin and Bilibili, as well as some commenters on Weibo and Xiaohongshu, have started referring to Trump as “税美人” (shuìměirén), which literally means “Tariff Beauty.”
The nickname is a clever pun, since it sounds exactly the same as the Chinese name for the Sleeping Beauty fairytale: 睡美人 (shuìměirén) (there is also a South Korean 2016 movie of the same name 税美人, Tax Beauty).
What makes the nickname extra catchy is the wordplay: “税” (shuì) means “tax” or “tariff,” and “美” is also an abbreviation for America (from Měiguó, 美国). So, “税美人” not only brings to mind a fairytale princess, but also evokes the idea of “the American who taxes,” perfectly capturing Trump’s dramatic tariff policies in a playful way.
The nickname was especially used in comment sections when Trump began threatening additional tariffs, eventually bringing the total tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% on April 10.
Meanwhile, the “Comrade Trump” meme is more relevant than ever. Both China’s official and unofficial reactions to Trump’s tariffs reflect a general belief that the policies will ultimately harm the American economy and its global influence, while boosting China’s domestic market (also read our latest here).
On April 16, Harvard University Assistant Professor Moira Weigel published a commentary titled “Long Live Comrade Trump’s Tariffs” in The New York Times, which was later elaborately discussed by Chinese media outlet Guancha.
The article opens by briefly referencing China’s “Comrade Build-the-Nation” meme. Weigel argues that there’s some truth to the sentiment behind the nickname, suggesting that Trump’s tariffs won’t bring manufacturing back to the US, but will instead strengthen China’s position in global e-commerce. She notes that Americans will simply end up paying more for the same goods they’ve always bought, while Chinese companies are accelerating innovation, expanding internationally, and finding clever ways to circumvent tariffs by working with third-party companies and establishing US-based warehousing.
There’s perhaps also another layer to Trump’s new nickname — it also suggests that he is asleep, and, meanwhile, like the “Comrade” meme, is actually hurting the US and strengthening China. One netizen suggested that when it momentarily seemed Trump was backing down by exempting electronic goods from the tariff, a handsome prince had given him a kiss that made him wake up.
But with Trump later declaring that there was no “exception” at all, it seems that the confusion — as well as tariff tensions — are only growing. For now, there’s no happy ending in sight.
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Ive been wondering about what people were saying about 税美人on Weibo, but hadn’t had time to dive in. Thanks! The art work is so great.😀