Ways to not buy American

[Scissor]

I know the obvious brands that are fast food, fizzy drinks etc but I'm not sure about the overarching companies that are American owned and brands that I might miss.
It might be a small and solo protest but I'm determined.

It would be a shorter but not necessarily easier list if you focus on the tech oligarchs supporting Trump.

Elon Musk - Tesla/X/Paypal
Peter Thiel - Paypal
Mark Zuckerburg - Meta - Facebook/Instagram/Threads
Jeff Bezos - Amazon

Amazon is prob the easiest to replace. I've managed to close an Instagram account I never use. WhatsApp is harder as used for so many groups, trying to use it less instead. X/Threads can be replaced with Blue Sky.

Happy to never buy or eat American food... pile-o-shite.

levis are not made in the us anymore

Unless you are prepared to stop using the internet you can't boycott Amazon. Almost half of all internet traffic passes through the Amazon Web Servers.

Little bits add up. We can either do something, or do nothing.

My dh works for a company that employs hundreds of people in a mid sized town in the uk. Both manufacturing, sales and design/engineering. Then finance, IT, catering etc.

That company is owned by a company in the Netherlands.

And that company in the Netherlands is owned by a company in the USA.

What the heck have we invented, that list is most people’s lives.

McDonalds employs local people and uses food produced in the country it is based in. You are hurting your own country more than the US by boycotting them - and your own opinions on the food is neither here nor there, you aren't a superior being you know. I had a burger here yesterday (not UK), there was very little of "awful processed food" - and it was delicious. We don't need you to lecture us on what we should be eating.

We are doing the same.

The cpu in every phone?

Doing great - although I'd draw the line at marmite. And our royals are good too 😊

It's a bit more complicated than that. If you say swap Kellogg's for a UK owned brand, these are also made in the UK so there is no damage to our economy overall. If of course you buy no cereal at all then yes we damage our economy.

I think if you want to boycott US goods then you don't have to be perfect. Just do what you can, it isn't an all or nothing situation. Amazon and things like coffee chains and fast food chains are easy to do and it will probably improve our economy as we will be moving away from companies that work hard to avoid taxes and pay low wages to local small businesses that do pay all their taxes and treat their employees better.

Absolutely.

Realistically it isn't going to be possible to boycott all American products - people can't be expected to give up jobs and stop communicating with their children.

So do what you can. There's no need to buy a Tesla - and the good thing about a Tesla boycott is it works even if people aren't bothered about Musk personally. if you can hit the resale value of the product.

Air B &B is co-operating with DOGE so try and book with another site if you can - or directly with owners.

Also of course give your support to political parties in the UK who adhere to your values. Don't think that because you don't have time to do much, what you can do is valueless. Anyone who's trudged round the streets pushing leaflets through doors knows that seeing a poster in a window gives you a real lift.

If you can afford to give money do so.

Get off Twitter and onto Bluesky. Don't worry if Bluesky users don't share all your views on every subject - it's very easy to block.

Someone said it was wrong to boycott something like McDonalds as it could be a franchisee owned branch. True BUT all these businesses that are owned by US corporations function similarly: the US Corporation sets the business up and employees get paid a salary which pays UK income tax from salaries to govt. The profits though are funnelled back to US , normally with minimum to no corporation tax to country of generation. That is reason US pumps so much into its miltary is to safeguard this global economic position (its global wealth generating factory) so incoming profits are undistrubed - not for altruistic reasons. I try not to buy US goods and services anymore.

Food wise, I agree with this, I go to Waitrose for this reason as most of the produce is not American. You'd have to buy certain brands which is the reason I go there in the first place to have an alternative to obvious names brands.

Most of the food items on your list I avoid anyway as they have too much sugar and salt in them.

Walmart was bought by two Brits, Walmart only have a 10% share now. Visit gov. UK where you will find a list of UK owned businesses if you need more info

Standing up to bullies never hurt anyone.

I think it won’t be a “little solo protest” at all. A lot of people seem to be boycotting everything they can from America. Even if we can’t avoid everything I am certainly doing whatever possible.

Samsung run on Android which is owned by Google

OK, instead of

Coca Cola ... Rubicon
Cadbury - it's ruined anyway!
McDonalds ... Leon (or any chicken shop!)
Colgate, Kellogs etc - just buy own brands these ones are easy - anything in the supermarket is easy, but harder things are like...
Apple - Samsung
Google - DuckDuckGo
Amazon ... ouch ... John Lewis 😅
Disney - BBC, Viki, Britbox
Twitter - Mumsnet!
AirBnb - Booking.com
Uber - Bolt
Tesla - Mercedes electric

You can't excise the US from your life - our world is too globalised and intertwined - but it's sort of interesting to notice that there actually are many non US alternatives. Good alternatives, not shit. The only one that's really dominant is Amazon - Amazon is hard to quit.

Yeah, but those parts were actually made in China and the final assembly (or just the polishing) was done in the US.

Doesn't help, as I'd want to be boycotting China as well ... which is even harder!

Listening to Trump bloviating about how America wants all Ukraine's "raw earth", I'm unconvinced by his ambition to out-tech China 🤨

2021 Walmart sold Asda but retained an interest in the biard

@MrsJHernandez Asda isn't owned by Walmart.

Sorry never noticed someone already pointed it out.