Donald Trump has a new 15-foot gold statue at his Miami golf resort, and the internet immediately made the same comparison: North Korea.
The statue, nicknamed “Don Colossus,” was installed at Trump National Doral Miami ahead of the PGA Tour’s Cadillac Championship. It shows Trump with one fist raised, echoing the gesture he made after surviving the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The 3.1-ton statue was created by artist Alan Cottrill and commissioned by a cryptocurrency group. A similar statue also appeared in mock-ups for Trump’s proposed presidential library in Miami.
Then side-by-side photos began spreading online, showing the Trump statue next to a huge monument of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. The raised-arm pose was enough to set off the comparisons.
Critics Said The Statue Looked Like A Dictator Monument
Former NBCUniversal executive Mike Sington posted the comparison on X, writing, “Trump’s Doral National golf course in Miami installs gold statue of Trump, which is remarkably similar to one of Dear Leader in North Korea.”
Another user took the comparison even further, writing, “Crazy stuff! All he has left is to declare martial law, cancel elections, and declare himself dictator for life.”
Dr. Sam Youssef, a frequent Trump critic, also weighed in, saying Trump had achieved his “dream of becoming like North Korean leaders.”
The North Korea comparison hit harder because Trump has previously spoken warmly about Kim Jong Un, once saying the two “fell in love” after the North Korean dictator sent him “beautiful letters.”
Golfers Reacted To The Very Gold Statue
The statue arrived as Doral prepares for the Cadillac Championship, marking the PGA Tour’s return to Miami and Doral for the first time in a decade.
Golfers had some thoughts.
“It’s going to make me look smaller than I already am,” Rickie Fowler told ‘Golfweek’ when asked whether he would pose with the statue.
“What else would you expect?” he added.
Maverick McNealy said he had not decided whether he would take a selfie with it, though he described the statue as “very tall and very gold.”
That description may be the cleanest summary of the whole thing.
The Artist Reportedly Had A Crypto Dispute
Cottrill, the Ohio artist behind the bronze-and-gold statue, previously told ‘The Columbus Dispatch’ that he had been in a dispute with $PATRIOT, the cryptocurrency group that commissioned the work.
He was reportedly paid $300,000 for the bronze and $60,000 for gold leafing. The dispute allegedly began when the crypto group used the statue’s likeness to sell tokens.
Cottrill reportedly kept the statue in a secret location until he received full payment.
The White House has said it is not involved in the crypto project or the statue.
Still, the visual has already done its job. A giant gold Trump with a raised fist now sits at Doral, and the internet has decided it looks less like golf decor and more like something from a dictator’s plaza.
