Did 2012's Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 predict the 2025 US-China trade war? Internet meltdown over eerie resemblance to real-world events

Reel and real worlds often collide in interesting ways but sometimes the coincident is so eerie that people are left flummoxed by the sheer degree of accuracy. Well, sort of. Such is now the case of a popular video game that seems to have predicted the current trade war between the US and China.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, the iconic video game that was released back in 2012, has overlapping plotlines with the real-world events. What was once seen as a pure fiction has now become the reality of our times. For the uninitiated, Call of Duty’s 2012 version is set in the wait for it, time period in 2025 when the world is battling a new form of ‘cold war’. The game oscillates between 1980 and 2025 with setting featuring drones, cyberweapon and other advanced systems.

In the game, Raul Menendez, the prime antagonist triggers a massive stock market crash in China that leads to more chaos around the globe. Later, the game shows Chinese government retaliating to the share market crash with export curb on rare earth elements.

Black ops 2. pic.twitter.com/4YHySI620s
mrredpillz jokaqarmy (@JOKAQARMY1) April 9, 2025

With Beijing ‘weaponising’ the supply of key resources, the tension escalates pushing the US and China into a second cold war. The game also shows major economies entangled in intense battles to gain control over digital infra.

Political observers as well as other netizens have been quick about drawing parallels between the video game and the real-world tensions that has troubled the world economy.

Since Donald Trump came to power for second time, things have been very volatile for the global economy. But unlike the storyline of the video game where the countries fought with each other with weapons, the real-world trade war is fought with tariffs. US and China have been involved in intense trade war with Trump imposing steep levies and Beijing retaliating to it.

Netizens are also pointing out that just like the game, Beijing has in real world, banned the exports of rare earth elements. These resources are used to build weapons, electric cars and electric chips. And China has a near monopoly over the supply of rare earth elements. As per the trade data Beijing controls almost 90% of the global supply of rare earth elements.