Pro-Trump Apparel Company Agrees to Pay Over $200K Fine for Ripping Out ‘Made in China’ Tags and Replacing Them With ‘Made in USA’ Tags
Screenshot via Lions Not Sheep on Facebook.
Lions Not Sheep, which sells a series of T-shirts and other apparel with pro-Trump and conservative messages, agreed to pay a $211,335 fine to the Federal Trade Commission after it was busted removing “Made in China” tags and replacing them with ones claiming the items were made in the U.S.
The website and social media for the company include lots of patriotic imagery to peddle T-shirts, hats, and other items with a variety of messaging, including portraying former President Donald Trump as a Terminator-like figure and slogans like “GIVE VIOLENCE A CHANCE.”
Screenshot via Lions Not Sheep on Facebook.
An Instagram post from last month showed Lions Not Sheep owner Sean Whalen wearing a shirt that says “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” as he swings around a bat printed with the company name and wrapped in what looks like barbed wire.
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The Utah-based company’s name, according to the Deseret News, is a reference to the phrase “a lion doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep,” and many of their products promote a pro-Second Amendment message, oppose Covid-19 restrictions, and so on. Unsurprisingly, Lions Not Sheep also sells multiple items with “Let’s Go Brandon” and “FJB” on them, euphemisms for “F*** Joe Biden.”
The prevalent color scheme on many of Lion Not Sheep’s products are a patriotic red-white-and-blue, and they’ve been shipping a free copy of the U.S. Constitution with every order.
But the “Made in the USA” labels were a fraud, the FTC found, finalizing an order against Lions Not Sheep and owner Whalen for “falsely claiming that its imported apparel is Made in USA,” when it was actually made in China and other countries. In a press release, the FTC announced the $211,335 fine imposed on Whalen and his company, and summarized the order’s other requirements to “stop making bogus Made in USA claims” and “come clean about foreign production”:
Under the order, Whalen and Lions Not Sheep must stop claiming that products are made in the United States unless they can show that the product’s final assembly or processing—and all significant processing—takes place here and that all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced here.
Also under the order, any qualified Made in USA claims must include a clear and conspicuous disclosure about the extent to which the product contains foreign parts, ingredients or components, or processing. Finally, to claim that a product is assembled in the United States, Whalen and Lions Not Sheep must ensure that it is last substantially transformed in the United States, its principal assembly takes place in the United States, and U.S. assembly operations are substantial.
It seems that Whalen’s own social media posts helped get his company into hot water. The report by the Deseret News noted that Lions Not Sheep’s website had claimed they used “white labeling,” or buying raw materials from foreign countries to assemble them in the U.S., but Whalen himself bragged about ripping out the “made in China” tags:
But according to the FTC complaint, Whalen posted a video to social media claiming he could “conceal the fact that his shirts are made in China by ripping out the origin tags and replacing them with tags stating that the merchandise was made in the United States.”
The complaint specifies that from May 10 to Oct. 8, 2020, Whalen removed tags that disclosed where the products were made. The company’s shirts had labels that read “Made in the USA,” “Made in America,” “Are your products USA Made?” “100% AMERICAN MADE,” and “BEST (expletive) AMERICAN MADE GEAR ON THE PLANET.”
