About

Do Not Retaliate And You Will Be Rewarded refers to a viral tweet posted by the official White House Twitter / X account (@WhiteHouse) under President Donald Trump's second administration, which warned other countries not to retaliate against the imposed reciprocal tariffs, saying, “DO NOT RETALIATE AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED.” The tweet, posted in early April 2025, became the subject of ironic reposts and image caption memes that added the catchphrase alongside images and illustrations of notable villains.

h2.Origin

On April 9th, 2025, the official U.S. White House account on X^[1] tweeted a warning to other countries not to retaliate against President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs, which were paused for a 90-day freeze for all countries except China amid its ongoing trade war with the U.S.^[2] The post stated, “DO NOT RETALIATE AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED,” amassing over 25 million views and 118,000 likes in a day.

Spread

In just a few hours, several reactions to the White House's tweet landed on the platform, mostly treating the post as a classic quote from a comic book, film or video game villain in image caption memes.

For instance, on April 9th, 2025, X^[3] user @iamTannenbaum shared a quote tweet featuring a still image of Mad Max: Fury Road villain Immortan Joe as if he uttered the “do not retaliate and you will be rewarded” phrase. The post (seen below) received more than 579,000 views and 25,000 likes in a day.

On the same day, X^[4] user @seaweedanxiety posted a version of the White House tweet like it was a ransom letter (seen below), amassing roughly 6,000 views and 230 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References