T-shirts of Donald Trump assassination attempt sold on Chinese e-commerce sites, listings swiftly taken down

SINGAPORE: Chinese e-commerce retailers were quick to cash in on the assassination attempt on former United States president Donald Trump last Saturday (Jul 13), with T-shirts of the image of him waving his fist going on sale hours after the news broke. 

On popular e-commerce platform Taobao, the first batch of t-shirts went on sale less than three hours after the shooting happened in Pennsylvania at about 6.11pm local time, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

A Taobao seller told the news outlet she put the T-shirts on sale as soon as she read the news. Within three hours, she received more than 2,000 orders from China and the US. 

The photo on the T-shirts was taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci. The image of Trump bleeding and his fist raised quickly went viral, with Mr Vucci’s Instagram and X – formerly known as Twitter – accounts chalking up almost 122,000 likes combined.

A photo of a Trump T-shirt also went viral on X, with more than 27,400 retweets and 264,000 likes. “This is China’s speed!” the user wrote. 

Listings of the T-shirt, however, appear to have been taken down, going by a search of “Trump T-shirt” on Taobao by CNA on Monday (Jul 15) afternoon. 

Images of the product listings also appear to have been censored on microblogging site Weibo. An image posted by Russian news agency Sputnik on its Weibo account about the product listings was censored. 

Another post on Weibo, which stated that “T-shirts of Trump’s assassination attempt are already online on Taobao”, also had its images censored. 

Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally by a 20-year-old who was shot dead by law enforcement officers. The gunman killed a 50-year-old man and critically wounded two other spectators.

The 78-year-old presidential candidate had just started his speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 50km north of Pittsburgh, when the shots rang out. He grabbed his right ear with his right hand, then looked at his hand before dropping to his knees behind the podium. Secret Service agents then closed in and covered him.

Trump emerged about a minute later without his red "Make America Great Again" hat and could be heard saying "wait, wait", before agents ushered him into a vehicle.

The assassination attempt was a hot topic on Weibo. One blogger, whose post commenting on Trump’s chances of winning the election received more than 3,000 likes, wrote: “This is an assassination attempt that sent Trump right to the altar!” 

Another post, which had more than 13,000 likes, praised Mr Vucci and the camera he reportedly used. 

While most comments made light of the assassination attempt, one blogger lamented the state of gun violence in the US.

“It’s almost as if at this moment, a violent shooting incident has become this country’s glory. What happened to the state of this country?” wrote the user, liyewuwei.