Donald Trump's $500 Billion Tweet

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About

Donald Trump's $500 Billion Tweet refers to a series of jokes about a tweet from United States President Donald Trump about the possibility of a trade war between the United States and China.

Origin

On April 4th, 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted,^[1] "We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!" The post (shown below, left) received more than 21,000 retweets and 81,000 likes within 24 hours.

He followed this tweet with another and wrote,^[2] "When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!" The post (shown below, right) received more than 11,000 retweets and 52,000 likes in 24 hours.

Spread

Following the post, people made jokes about President Trump's attitude toward money, particularly his experience in the gambling industry, which resulted in several casinos going backrupt.

Twitter^[3] user @CharlesPPierce tweeted, "If you asked how somebody could go broke running casinos, you have your answer." The post (shown below) received more than 1,000 retweets and 2,900 likes in 24 hours.

New York Times writer Dave Itzkoff tweeted,^[4] "imagine this guy running a casino of some sort." The post (shown below, center) received more than 620 retweets and 3,300 likes in 24 hours.

Twitter^[5] user @stevebenent tweeted, "How did Donald Trump manage to lose money running a casino? The answer is coming into focus." The post (shown below, right) received more than 460 retweets and 1,400 likes in 24 hours.

Twitter user @atrupar tweeted,^[6] "REMINDER: Trump has declared bankruptcy 6 times." The post (shown below) received more than 100 retweets and 220 likes in 24 hours.

Several media outlets published articles about response to Trump's tweet, including Someecards,^[7] Mediaite,^[8] The Daily Dot ^[9] and more.