The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has sparked a wave of online merchandise promoting images of the US presidential candidate immediately after he was shot, with slogans such as “Bulletproof,” “Legends never die,” “Wounded but not stunned,” and “Shooting makes me stronger.”
With prices ranging anywhere from about $9 to $40, T-shirts featuring images of Trump waving his fist in the air while streaks of blood run down his face have become widely circulated.
Within hours of the shooting, business owners and independent sellers rushed to create slogans and merchandise — often depicting the Republican presidential candidate as a rebel — in what has become the latest in a long line of Trump merchandise.
“Sales exceeded my expectations. I didn’t expect Trump to have so many fans,” said Zhong Jiaqi, 28, owner of the Paxinco clothing store on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, which sold about 40 T-shirts with Trump’s image in the 24 hours immediately after he was shot.
Li Jinwei, 25, who sells goods on Alibaba’s Taobao platform, told Hong Kong media it took only about half a minute to produce a Trump shirt at her factory in China.
“We put the shirts on Taobao as soon as we saw the news about the shooting, even though we hadn’t even printed them, and within three hours we saw over 2,000 orders from both China and the US,” she said.
Trump’s staring-in-the-camera look, seen on much of his past merchandise, reflects his iconic status on “The Apprentice,” the reality TV show he starred on for several years.
In 2023, Trump’s ghost is quickly being turned into T-shirts, mugs, cups, stickers, and even bobblehead dolls by friend and foe alike.
On Saturday, Trump supporters and campaigners quickly embraced a photo of Trump taken after a 20-year-old man shot him from a rooftop as they gathered around him ahead of the November U.S. presidential election.
The former US president was holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania – a key state in the November 5 election – when gunshots rang out, hitting his right ear and leaving him bleeding.
—Marcus Lum and Sophie Yu, Reuters
Source link
