Glut of Cheap Plastic Junk Engulfs China After U.S. Applies Tariffs

At a Temu-contracted manufacturing facility in Yiwu, floor manager Qin Meiling said production had not slowed, even as the goods began overtaking employee break rooms and blocking emergency exits.

“We can’t stop now. We’re halfway through a rush order of 800,000 rubber ducks wearing little cowboy hats. Of course, now we’re going to have to carry them by hand,” she said, gesturing toward a forklift that had been crushed by falling pallets of disposable electronic toothbrushes. “Where are they going? I don’t know—that’s actually Xiaoyun’s job. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday, after she sank into a pool of Spongebob finger puppets and never resurfaced.”

In Shenzhen, police have resorted to using riot control equipment to disperse crowds forming around abandoned crates of HomeDecor™ storage bins shaped like otters.

“We’re doing what we can,” said officer Liu Bo, sweating through his uniform as he dumped case after case of novelty wine stoppers that looked like little chefs into a waiting garbage truck. “But the situation is deteriorating fast. There’s a rumor someone’s tossing unsold Squishmallow knockoffs in the reservoir.”

According to sources, President Xi Jinping reportedly acknowledged the situation was spiraling out-of-control and authorized a regional task force to address the surplus of unexported plastic goods manufacturers had been churning out in anticipation of sending them to the United States. Suggestions from ministers included bulldozing everything into the vast wasteland that is Xinjiang province, or possibly building another artificial reef in the South China Sea from all that excess junk.

“Before these recent tariffs, China collectively exported roughly 6.5 billion pounds of manufactured goods each day to the United States,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “If those products aren’t packed and loaded each day onto a ship headed out of port, well, they pile up here.”

In response to the pileup becoming visible from the Tiangong space station, government officials rushed to get out a statement encouraging citizens not to panic. In front of news cameras, the Minister of Commerce reassured citizens that the plastic overflow was “a sign of China’s manufacturing strength and commitment to consumer abundance,” and not, as some social media users have claimed, “the collapse of a decades-long export dependency model now completely upended by fickle Americans.”

At press time, 8.5 million Americans had just added a 10-pack of glow-in-the-dark Jesus coasters to their Amazon shopping cart and were ready to checkout.