For someone so desperate to project masculinity, JD Vance isn’t so great at picking fights he can win. After referring to Chinese working people as “peasants” while justifying Trump’s tariffs, those so-called peasants are now mercilessly roasting him over the one cosmetic export he can’t seem to do without.
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Last week, in the middle of another game of global recession chicken brought to us by Trump, JD Vance went on Fox News to justify an impending trade war with China. “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” he claimed.
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The comment was outrageous—particularly coming from someone who bills himself as some kind of working class hero—but China responded with anything but outrage. A Chinese meme has now gone viral for outlining (literally) the personal cost of high tariffs for Vance.
The video shows an AI-generated child as a caricature of the kind of peasant Vance is imagining. “Vice President Vance, I’m a Chinese peasant,” the child says. “Do you realize your tariff policy will lead to the soaring price of your eyeliner?”
China is the third largest exporter of cosmetics and beauty products to the US, coming beneath its nearest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, according to 2023 data from USA Customs Clearance. Not only is Vance’s eyeliner in danger of a price hike, so is whatever awful orange foundation Trump insists on caking over his face.
Vance’s alleged eyeliner has been a point of ridicule throughout his campaign—mainly for the hypocrisy of his attacks on drag queens and the trans community. The only time eyeliner discourse became the least of his problems was when photos of Vance in drag surfaced at the height of his campaign.
But what’s the truth? Does Vance actually wear eyeliner? At least one photojournalist got close enough to be convinced.
Although Trump put a pause on most of the tariffs announced last week, he has kept a 145% tariff rate on Chinese imports (at the time of writing, since tariff news changes at the president’s whim). On the bright side, Vance can still source eyeliner from Canada and Mexico, two countries with no grievances at all with the current administration…oh wait.
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