This article presents a multimodal fusion model to explain the cognitive mechanisms covering 56 political cartoons (multimodal corpus) with regard to U.S. beef import matters as stated in two ruling Taiwanese newspapers, the Liberty Times and United Daily News. The proposed model develops from two metonymic-metaphoric networks, joining conceptual, visual, and verbal modes. It is an important, repeated representation technique in the political cartoon genre, with the cognitive function of effectively enclosing intricate, abstract political debates with irony and humorous effect.