Videos on the social media app, filmed at factories in China, urge viewers to buy luxury goods directly, as tariffs drive up prices. Americans are receptive.
Chinese manufacturers are flooding TikTok and other social media apps with direct appeals to American shoppers, urging people to buy luxury items straight from their factories. And amid the threats of sky-high tariffs on Chinese exports, Americans seem to be all in.
The pitch in the videos is that people can buy leggings and handbags exactly like those from brands like Lululemon, Hermes and Birkenstock, but for a fraction of the price. They claim, often falsely, that the products are made in the same factories that produce items for those brands.
American influencers have embraced the videos, promoting the factories and driving downloads of Chinese shopping apps like DHGate and Taobao as a way for shoppers to save money if the price of goods skyrockets under President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. DHGate was among the 10 most downloaded apps in Apple’s and Google’s app stores last week.
The videos are surging in popularity on TikTok and Instagram, racking up millions of views and thousands of likes. Many of the posts also seem to have elicited Americans’ sympathy for China in comments, such as “Trump bullied the wrong country” and “China won this war.”
The videos offer a rare outlet for Chinese factory owners and workers to speak directly to American consumers through social media apps that are technically banned in China. And their popularity in America highlights increasingly vocal support for China on social media, similar to the outcry over the federal government’s potential ban of TikTok.
“It’s activating people politically in a similar way that you saw when we were going to cancel TikTok, but this time in the context of tariffs and the overall relationship with the two countries,” said Matt Pearl, a director who focuses on technology issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It does demonstrate their ability to communicate with American consumers to drive a message about our dependence on Chinese goods.”