In early May 2025, social media users shared a rumor that Chinese officials had said that U.S. President Donald Trump calls them multiple times a day to beg for a trade deal, only to be put on hold while audio of speeches by former President Barack Obama plays until Trump hangs up.
For example, on May 2, one X user, whose post had amassed more than 233,000 views as of this writing (archived), wrote: "The Chinese say Trump is calling them to make a deal on Tariffs a dozen times a day and they're sick of it so they're putting Trump on hold and playing Obama speeches till he hangs up!"
That same X user wrote a similar post the following day, which included a TikTok video that also featured the claim (archived). The TikTok video had amassed more than 636,000 views as of this writing.
Other examples of the rumor appeared elsewhere on X, in multiple Facebook posts and on Bluesky.
Some readers seemed to take the claim at face value. However, there was no evidence of it being true. Searches for "Trump call China daily put on hold Barack Obama speeches" on Google, Bing and Yahoo produced no evidence of the U.S. president contacting Chinese officials every day only to be made to listen to speeches by one of his predecessors.
Rather, the rumor originated from the X user The Halfway Post — an account that describes its output as satirical in nature. Its bio states: "Halfway true comedy and satire by @DashMacIntyre. I don't report the facts, I improve them. Comedy is cathartic in fascist eras."
The Halfway Post's original satirical post read: "BREAKING: Top Chinese officials say Trump has been calling them a dozen times every day to beg for a trade deal, and they put him on hold while playing audio of Obama speeches until he hangs up."
The satirical claim was also published on Medium by the author responsible for The Halfway Post, Dash MacIntyre (archived). MacIntyre's about page on Medium states: "MacIntyre is a comedian from St. Louis, and writes The Halfway Post, America's number one source of halfway real satirical news."
The Halfway Post has a history of making up stories for shares and comments.
The fictional story spread amid an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, during which Trump targeted Beijing with historic tariffs.
Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims from The Halfway Post in the past, including the rumor that Greenland's prime minister trolled Trump on social media and a fictional story that a sex tape featuring former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was sent to all major news outlets.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.