Trump CPAC Statue Was Made in China, Not Mexico
The Claim
The CPAC’s gold statue of former President Trump was made in Mexico.
News posted on
Emerging story
One popular highlight from last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was a gold statue of former President Trump. The fiberglass statue depicts a smiling Trump wearing flip flops and shorts with an American flag print. He holds a wand in one hand, and a copy of the constitution in the other. Trending in the news and across social media is the claim that the statue was made in Mexico.
Critics of the former president exuberantly shared the news, considering it strange or ironic in light of Trump’s well-known immigration policies regarding the US-Mexico border.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar found this claim to be false. Artist Tommy Zegan told Politico’s Playbook last weekend that he built the statue in his home in Rosarito, Mexico. Days later, Zegan’s business partner, Jose Maurico Mendoza, reached out to Politico with a correction: while the artist is based in Mexico, the statue was manufactured at the Shijiazhuang D & Z Sculpture Co factory in China. He provided a video shared by CNN which supported his claim. “Everything is made in China,” Mendoza told Playbook regarding their company's work. “I want to be straight, because if I’m going to sell these statues, they have to be true.”
Mendoza, who is listed as an art director and co-founder on Zegan’s website, told The Independent that the original story was “basically fabricated” because they worried that the statue’s true origin might not sit well with CPAC attendees. “If somebody says ‘why would he do it?’, well, I think that you don’t want to have a Trump statue at the CPAC and say ‘yeah it was made in China’...it just felt better using Mexico because it’s our neighbour. China is not our neighbour.” Later, Zegan also confirmed to Playbook that China was the true manufacturing site.
When ArtnetNews asked Mendoza why the statue wasn’t built in the US, he replied, “It’s just economics. It would have cost us four times as much to make that statue here.” The original statue is allegedly for sale on ebay.
