Overview

Donald Trump's Reciprocal Tariffs, also known as Donald Trump's Import Tariffs or Trump Recession, refers to a viral debate and controversy surrounding United States President Donald Trump's plans for sweeping new import taxes on all goods entering the country. The Trump tariffs were announced in early April 2025 during a press conference in front of the White House, during which the President stated a national economic emergency and announced tariffs that will range from 10 percent to 49 percent depending on the country. The tariffs' announcement quickly fueled memes, jokes and discourse of a possible economic recession or "second Great Depression" after Trump alleged the country could have avoided the 1929 Great Depression with the same tariffs strategy he announced. Numerous memes also appeared poking fun at the seemingly random countries and islands chosen, such as the uninhabited "Heard Island and McDonald Islands"":knowyourmeme.com/memes/donald-trumps-penguin-tariffs that are mainly home to penguins. Memes about Orange Monday and the stock market crashing began making the rounds in early April 2025 as well.

Background

On April 2nd, 2025, United States President Donald Trump unveiled a baseline tariff on all imports of at least 10 percent on all goods entering the country, calling it "Reciprocal Tariffs," which occurred during the Make America Wealthy Again Event in front of the White House.

According to a BBC^[1] article, countries in the European Union and China will face higher rates for what Trump said was "payback due to unfair trade policies." President Trump's^[2] full speech was shared on his X account (seen below), amassing over 9 million views, 54,000 likes and 8,800 replies in a few hours.

Also on April 2nd, Trump uploaded a full list of the reciprocal tariffs^[3] against more than 180 countries on his Truth Social platform. The posts received more than 33,000 likes and 11,000 reposts combined (seen below).

According to The Guardian,^[4] Trump's goals are to "bring manufacturing back to the US; respond to unfair trade policies from other countries; increase tax revenue; and incentivise crackdowns on migration and drug trafficking."

Developments

Response From World Leaders

U.S. President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs spawned backlash and criticism from various governments around the world, many of whom "pledged countermeasures on the U.S.," as Reuters^[5] reported.

On April 3rd, 2025, BBC^[7] uploaded a video covering the world leaders' reactions to Trump's tariffs, receiving over 79,000 views, 1,100 likes and 1,000 comments in six hours.

Online Reactions

The extensive reciprocal tariffs announced by President Donald Trump's executive order sparked numerous memes and jokes in the following hours and days, such as Photoshop edits of the reciprocal tariffs and montages of Trump signing the tariffs in front of the White House, as well as many netizens across social media sharing their humorous takes on the event.

For example, on April 2nd, 2025, X^[6] user @OJoelsen noticed that Trump's reciprocal tariffs plan put a 10 percent tariff on the Heard Island and McDonald territory, writing that the island "has a population of ZERO people and is inhabited only by penguins." The tweet (seen below) amassed more than 92,000 views and 4,000 likes in a day.

On the same day, Redditor^[8] u/JoJoVonAnthro photoshopped a J.D. Vance Face Edit meme over the reciprocal tariffs sign Trump held and shared it to the /r/MemeTemplatesOfficial subreddit (seen below), captioning it, "Trump Presenting Favorite JD Vance Meme." The post received roughly 110 upvotes in a day.

On April 3rd, 2025, Redditor No_awards_please also posted a meme about the Heard Island and McDonald Islands tariff to the /r/dankmemes^[11] subreddit, receiving roughly 560 upvotes and 10 comments in three hours (shown below).

Second Great Depression Memes

A wave of memes and jokes about a "Second Great Depression" ensued on social media shortly after the tariffs reveal in early April 2025, especially after President Donald Trump claimed the United States could have avoided the 1929 Great Depression with the same tariffs strategy he announced.

For instance, X^[9] user @Acyn posted Trump's speech referencing the historical event on April 2nd, 2025 (seen below), amassing over 2.9 million views and 2,500 likes in a day.

On the same day, X^[10] user @daydenjaniels5 posted a reaction video of a young man looking at the sky, captioning it, "Second Great Depression as soon as I graduate college." The post (seen below) amassed over 2.4 million views and 114,000 likes in a day.

AI-Generated Tariff Formula Theories

Several internet users discussed the possibility that Trump's tariff formula was derived using LLMs like ChatGPT. On April 2nd, 2025, American economist @JamesSurowiecki tweeted^[12] about having reverse-engineered a possible explanation for the tariff pricing, writing, "for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us."

On April 2nd, X^[13] user @krishnanrohit posted a series of images showing how several LLMs responded to the question of how to impose tariffs easily. The tweet shows Chat GPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok all advising a formula similar to the one used by the U.S. government.

On April 3rd, X^[14] user @quendergeer shared the theory that the Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs were derived using AI, given that the list of countries being tariffed included islands like McDonald and Heard, which are barren, have active volcanos, and where no humans currently reside. Furthermore, the tweet puts forward the idea that the regions taxed were divided by internet domains and not according to governing bodies.

The Verge^[15] published an article discussing the possibility that Donald Trump's tariffs were devised using LLMs on April 3rd, 2025.

Search Interest

External References