Did China put a 2,000% tariff on tanning beds and a 4,000% one on spray-tan products in order to hurt President Donald Trump personally during the ongoing trade war? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a satirical columnist in The New Yorker but because of the domain name many people presumably thought it was real news.
The story originated from an article published by The Borowitz Report on July 9, 2018 titled "China Slaps Two-Thousand-Per-Cent Tariff on Tanning Beds" (archived here) which opened:
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)--In the latest salvo in its escalating trade war with the United States, China has slapped all tanning beds slated for export to the U.S. with a two-thousand-per-cent tariff.
By artificially hiking up the cost of its tanning beds, China succeeded in sending the price of tanning beds worldwide soaring in overnight markets.
In what some experts regarded as a related move, China also placed a four-thousand-per-cent tariff on all spray-tan products headed for the U.S., as well as instant-tanning lotions, makeup foundation, and several popular hues of orange paint, including butter rum and burnt sienna.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
China Slaps Two-Thousand-Per-Cent Tariff on Tanning Beds
The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, blasted China's tariffs on its full range of tanning products, calling the move an "act of war."
The story actually appeared in the satire column of The New Yorker ("The Borowitz Report" by Andy Borowitz) which was acquired in 2012 by the magazine. Although the section with the columns and all the articles in it are clearly marked as satire the stories frequently get confused for real news by people who only see the title and summary on social media and who assume it must be real because the link goes to the actual website of The New Yorker. To them it would look somewhat like this, with an easy to miss "Not the news" being the only indication it is not real:
In part to combat this the main page of The Borowitz Report comes with a clear heading that simply states:
Satire from the Borowitz Report
To be safe, whenever you see a link that goes to any article on the "newyorker.com" website, always check if the rest of the link says "/humor/borowitz-report/" somewhere. If it does, don't believe a thing you read...
We wrote about newyorker.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Kim Jong Un Did NOT Offer to Host Peace Talks Between United States and Canada
- Fake News: Macron, Trudeau Did NOT Say They Weren't Going to Tell Trump Where G-7 Afterparty Was
- Fake News: Trump's Lawyers Did NOT Argue That He Cannot Be Impeached Because He Was Never Actually Elected
- Fake News: Trump Did NOT Order Replica Nobel Peace Prize to Display on His Desk
- Fake News: Trump Did NOT Delete Nine Tweets While Attempting to Spell "Subpoena"
