While the Sino-U.S. trade conflict, as one of the critical international issues with far-reaching consequences, has been studied from various perspectives, the study of political cartoons appears to have gone unnoticed in the extant literature. To address this gap, this study applied the multimodal discourse analysis framework to analyze 26 political cartoons published by China Daily, a major Chinese English-language news outlet. The investigation utilized a tripartite analytical framework—examining representational, interactive, and compositional meaning—to deconstruct visual rhetoric. The analysis consistently revealed that the cartoons strategically frame the United States as an aggressive and destabilizing force, with its trade policy visually portrayed as an inherent weapon of economic coercion. Crucially, this strategy was predominantly depicted as boomerang effects, producing undeniable and detrimental consequences both domestically for the U.S. and across the global economy. Through this sustained, sophisticated critique, the cartoons amplify the negative ideological attributes of U.S. trade policy, systematically constructing it and its instigators as an ideological outgroup opposing international stability.
Luyu Chen (Sun,) studied this question.