To think about boycotting American products and services

[Taytoface]

I feel so helpless in the current madness. It seems like the only act of objection possible is not buying american. Boycotting Israeli products, and South African back in the day, was relatively straightforward, but I have no clue how to de americanise my life. Anyone come across any helpful resources?

Actually really the only area of trade monopoly is tech. Thats it. You can literally buy everything else from a non US company.

Btw you will be incentivized to do this as American goods and services, should this stupid trade war go ahead, will become expensive. I think it is self defeating for the US to let Trump do this. But they are

Op China has a very poor human rights record. Are you going to boycott Chinese products?

So? Buy British. Thats Unilever

Precisely. People just love to trot out the same old meaningless phrases like "virtue signalling", "woke" and "snowflake." They dont mean anything.

I feel the same way, OP. We’ve been looking at how to buy less US imports in our household.

Obviously won’t be travelling there, and I doubt they’d let me in anyway if they looked at my Facebook feed.

We've started by cancelling subscriptions like Netflix and Audible, switching to Spotify (Swedish). There’s EU owned social media and tech services, not as well known as the big US ones, but they are out there. It will take some time to replace tech - I’m not throwing my iPhone out the window - but we started with subscriptions and now moving on to looking at individual purchases as we make them.

Got a list of Estée Lauder group owned cosmetics and I’ll be avoiding them too.

This isn’t virtue signalling, I’ve not spoken to anyone outside my immediate family about our decision. But it makes me sick to think of giving one pound of my money to those fascist billionaire tango funders.

Adidas is a German company, bit late to be boycotting them!!

We are in the process of upgrading our bicycles, have ruled out US makes and SRAM components.

For those who says its pointless, boycotting Tesla and Grok, across Europe especially, has made Musk step back from some of his initial crap.

Look at how Canada has reacted to Trump's expansionist ideas....

We had also planned a trip to Maine next year, that wont be happening either.

I put my country first obviously, that's why I agreed with making an effort to buy British.

This. Instead of just boycotting, the OP has to announce her virtue. We saw it all with the Israeli boycott 🥱. A pin prick in whatever manufacturing industry the virtue signal of the day is. 🙄

Only “virtue signaling” if you then make sure you broadcast your boycott, surely?

I agree it’d be very complicated to cut out everything American in your life.

I hate the term 'virtue signalling' it's like 'woke' and I just stop listening.

We were discussing this this morning. Most of it is tech which we can't really manage without. We could give up Netflix. I don't think we buy any physical products imported from the US.

I think while they clearly have no meaning the also seem to mean “anything I dislike is woke / virtue signalling”).

Yet examples of true virtue signalling (such Poppy Fascism) are never referred to as such.

Ive been boycotting Israeli goods since the 1970s. It hasn't worked but makes me feel better. I boycotted South African goods before Apartheid ended.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing though. Simply switching from google to ecosia makes a difference (and plants millions of trees).

The reality is that trumps tariffs hurt us indirectly by making our goods and services expensive for Americans to buy. So some switch to US products and that harms our economy.
so to offset that ( at least in part) we need to buy British and European as much as possible to make up for the loss in US customers.

Nobody said it has to be perfect but every bit helps. I suspect the vast majority of us use apple, Amazon, Microsoft and watch Netflix. It’s difficult to change some of that but buying less from Amazon and picking British and European companies instead certainly helps.

I agree it can be complicated but not travelling there and spending money there is one more straightforward answer. If numbers making the trip to Disney World fall it will make some impact.

Likewise switching from us owned food brands to European owned food brands. Plus toiletries and cleaning consumables.

I agree. You can start so.ewhere / anywhere @Taytoface .

I've seen some Americans successfully boycott individual companies, so it's okay to start somewhere.

I can't boycott the entire US, but I have several companies I (and many others) haven't used for years. They haven't collapsed, but market value has dwindled, and that means we're having an impact.

Also good luck untangling our financial services.

They’ve already fallen. It’s complicated because Disney is not a trump supporting company but in general we need to send the message by not visiting a corrupt country.

Not true, Tesla is a prime example.

Some things aren't possible FS or the s/w we use on our phones or laptops but there is things we can avoid too, where there are alternatives.

I feel very angry with the USA, I think it would be very hard to boycott though as so many things we're reliant on are American. And I try to remind myself that the majority of Americans aren't calling for the invasion of Western Europe.

If you or DH likes Bourbon you could maybe switch to Scotch, Irish, Japanese or Canadian. A small gesture like that.

Also, ROFL at the posters who throw around accusations of virtue signalling whilst they are part of/defend a political movement where you get a special red baseball cap to wear all the time. That's different though presumably.

Announcing ones virtue is perfectly fine.
It brings issues and ideas to others' consciousness, spurring some to action too.
There is strength in numbers, so sing it loud!

Definitely boycotting X, Tesla and Grok. Many other services are too embedded in everyday life. I'm not sure about the effectiveness of boycotts in general but what could send a signal is for example not attending any World Cup games, not going to Vegas or Disneyland etc. As for systems, it's our government's job to make sure we invest in tech innovation and defence so that we don't depend quite so much on the US for our services and security.

I think I’ve just said this on the Jo malone diffuser thread! Buy Aldi!

There was an app created I think in France, when the tariff shit storm started. You use it to scan bar codes before you buy. It becomes more difficult with multi nationals I suppose as to where uou draw the line.

I try to buy British wherever I can but it is difficult sometimes to dig deeply enough to find the truth. None of my extended family have been to the US since Trump was re-elected and none of us intend to travel there in the near future. Between us, we'd go 3 or 4 times a year but we've been spending our holiday money elsewhere. Only a small gesture.