AltcoinsTrumpMarkets
|3 min ReadTRUMP and MELANIA memecoins jump after Trump signals China trade deal
Maya Chen
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
President Donald Trump’s official TRUMP memecoin had its strongest day in months, surging nearly 30 percent on Monday after he said the U.S. was “going to come away with the deal” in trade talks with China. The Solana-based token briefly climbed above 6.20 earlier in the day, before settling near $7.52 in late afternoon trading.
The rally came just weeks after the token had fallen to around $5.40, following Trump’s announcement of retaliatory tariffs against Beijing that shook global markets and sent crypto prices tumbling. Monday’s rebound reversed much of that slide as optimism returned ahead of renewed talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trading in TRUMP topped 1.5 billion.
“I have a lot of respect for President Xi, and we are going to come away with the deal,” Trump said Monday morning. His comment was enough to ignite a wave of speculative buying across political-themed tokens.
First Lady’s token joins the rally
The MELANIA memecoin, inspired by First Lady Melania Trump, followed closely behind, jumping 45 percent to about **0.10 before the session began. Both coins benefited from renewed retail excitement on Solana and a spike in search interest around “Trump crypto.”
Links to Binance and a political crypto ecosystem
The memecoin surge came days after Trump pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, calling him “persecuted by the Biden administration.” The move rekindled speculation about Trump’s growing influence in the crypto industry.
Earlier reports from The Wall Street Journal suggested that Trump-backed World Liberty Financial had explored a stake in Binance.US, though the project denied it. Weeks later, Abu Dhabi’s MGX said it would use World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin in a $2 billion deal with Binance.
Trump defended his pardon, saying Zhao “was recommended by a lot of people” and that “a lot of people say he wasn’t guilty of anything.”
The alignment between Trump’s political comeback and the resurgence of his branded tokens shows how fast narrative trading now moves in crypto. Attention, policy, and personality have become the new fundamentals.
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