Donald Trump’s ‘Buddha Statues’ start trending online, being sold for over Rs 44,000 on E-commerce site

Nearly two months after former US President Donald Trump finished his tenure and exited the Oval office, a photo of a white porcelain statue of Donald Trump sitting cross-legged like the Buddha is trending online. The photo is actually of a statue that was carved out by a Chinese entrepreneurial furniture-maker and was later listed on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao.

The statue is made available in two sizes, while the larger sized statue of 4.6m is available at 3,999 yuan (Rs 44,707), the smaller size of 1.6 meters has been priced at 999 yuan (Rs 1,1168). In the statue, Trump can be seen sitting cross-legged and hands folded in his laps, thumbs pointing outwards, which is said to be a Buddha pose that signifies meditation and contemplation.

In the e-commerce site, the product description of Trump’s Buddha statue says, “Trump Buddha knows Buddhism better than anyone”, and promises that putting him in your office will “make your company great again”.

Speaking to Global Times, the seller said that the idea of the Trump Buddha statue reminded him of Trump’s slogan of “Make American Great Again” and the former US president often claimed he knew things better than anyone. So the seller adapted the idea into something auspicious for Chinese companies: “make your company great again.”

“Most people just bought it for fun,” the seller said, adding that they only made 100 of the statues and have already sold dozens.

Meanwhile, a buyer from Shanghai, told the daily tabloid that he bought one of the statues after seeing the product in a WeChat moment. “I bought it for fun and put it on my desk at home as a decoration,” he said.