While tens of thousands of people have joined Facebook groups in Sweden and Denmark calling for no longer buying American, Norwegian company Haltbakk Bunkers has announced that it will stop supplying US military vessels with fuel.
I fully support this movement, but I expect it’s mainly an echo bubble and will remain as such. Leave the fediverse and subreddits and most people won’t even care.
The Canadian one has really taken off. Its not just on Lemmy. Im seeing more Canadian products on the checkout line than ever before and Ive even started seeing rotting American produce at our local store.
Everyone I talk to irl is limiting their US product purchases. Canadians are pissed.
Oh I do believe in this one! My response was rather eurocentric, I realize that now. The Canadians are even more hurt as it stands right now, and their response is incredible.
Perhaps I’ll see a greater response in my own community when the pointless tariffs also hit EU. Currently people are plenty pissed about US aligning themselves with Russia. It won’t take too much to ignite it further.
I do hope that I’m proven wrong, and that the boycott US movement is doing better than I thought 🙂
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Denmark, small population with fewer news sources makes thing spread VERY quickly. Not to mention, they are very patriotic. I’ll ask some Danish friends about it and report back.
My gf (who is not on the fedivere or any social media) came to me the other day and wanted to stop buying U.S products. Not that we really did before. Spendrups make better soft drinks than Coca-Cola and Pepsi anyway.
I’m trying to think, apart from technology, what do I buy from American brands?
American food doesn’t really come here except fast food franchises which I don’t frequent anyway.
Nobody has an American car.
My car’s electric anyway, so no American oil companies fueling it.
Clothes are probably all from Asia anyway.
I don’t subscribe to any streaming services.
I’ll order 5 or 6 things from Amazon a year. So that’s easy to stop.
Sure there might be the odd brand that is unknowingly American, but I’m left asking “What does America export?” because I can’t think of much in my life.
There’s Chips from companies like intel and Software like Windows from Microsoft and Mac from Apple. Then there’s digital infrastructure like Amazon and social media, or even credit cards can come from the US.
It’s also not just buying software that supports the US but using it can too, because they can use their data for advertising and other goals. So you should move to open source alternatives for software that Europe doesn’t have any good alternative for (eg. Linux instead of Windows) or find a European alternative.
This sounds great. But if you didn’t buy anything in the first place there’s also zero effect of boycotting. Then the movement can of course succeed quite easily, but at no net gain.
I feel like you tried to dodge the elephant in the room: the tech. The hardest part to get rid of is the technology, and in particularly the tech stack. Social media, servers, windows, outlook… The dependency is real at all levels, and I’ve yet to hear of any company trying to escape. This is also where I believe the boycott will fail at an consumer level, people will keep using META, stream from Netflix, order from Amazon etc. Since people are still using these, so will our companies and politicians.
A lot of supermarket food brands are American. You might be surprised if you start looking. Both my deodorant and toothpaste is from Unilever, for instance.
Not to discount your perspective, but I think it’s important to also acknowledge the close connection that you have.
My spouse is much more tuned in to things like this than many of their peers, not necessarily because they have more interest, but because we have a close relationship and so we share stuff a lot.
I fully support this movement, but I expect it’s mainly an echo bubble and will remain as such. Leave the fediverse and subreddits and most people won’t even care.
The Canadian one has really taken off. Its not just on Lemmy. Im seeing more Canadian products on the checkout line than ever before and Ive even started seeing rotting American produce at our local store.
Everyone I talk to irl is limiting their US product purchases. Canadians are pissed.
Huh, would have thought American produce is too full of preservatives to rot
Oh I do believe in this one! My response was rather eurocentric, I realize that now. The Canadians are even more hurt as it stands right now, and their response is incredible.
Perhaps I’ll see a greater response in my own community when the pointless tariffs also hit EU. Currently people are plenty pissed about US aligning themselves with Russia. It won’t take too much to ignite it further.
I do hope that I’m proven wrong, and that the boycott US movement is doing better than I thought 🙂
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Denmark, small population with fewer news sources makes thing spread VERY quickly. Not to mention, they are very patriotic. I’ll ask some Danish friends about it and report back.
Wouldn’t say that, after Gaza people are quite used to boycott certain wares.
I know a lot of people irl which already don’t buy coke or eat McDonald’s anymore
My gf (who is not on the fedivere or any social media) came to me the other day and wanted to stop buying U.S products. Not that we really did before. Spendrups make better soft drinks than Coca-Cola and Pepsi anyway.
Spendrups is a licensed Coca Cola factory. Make sure to check for any such shenanigans before buying Spendrups.
https://www.spendrups.se/varumarken/coca-cola/
I’m trying to think, apart from technology, what do I buy from American brands?
Sure there might be the odd brand that is unknowingly American, but I’m left asking “What does America export?” because I can’t think of much in my life.
There’s Chips from companies like intel and Software like Windows from Microsoft and Mac from Apple. Then there’s digital infrastructure like Amazon and social media, or even credit cards can come from the US.
It’s also not just buying software that supports the US but using it can too, because they can use their data for advertising and other goals. So you should move to open source alternatives for software that Europe doesn’t have any good alternative for (eg. Linux instead of Windows) or find a European alternative.
I already use Linux though. Don’t even drive and my bike is British. Most of the stuff we buy is German as we shop at Aldi.
This sounds great. But if you didn’t buy anything in the first place there’s also zero effect of boycotting. Then the movement can of course succeed quite easily, but at no net gain.
I feel like you tried to dodge the elephant in the room: the tech. The hardest part to get rid of is the technology, and in particularly the tech stack. Social media, servers, windows, outlook… The dependency is real at all levels, and I’ve yet to hear of any company trying to escape. This is also where I believe the boycott will fail at an consumer level, people will keep using META, stream from Netflix, order from Amazon etc. Since people are still using these, so will our companies and politicians.
A lot of supermarket food brands are American. You might be surprised if you start looking. Both my deodorant and toothpaste is from Unilever, for instance.
Unilever is English/Dutch so I don’t think they’re a concern.
Unilever is UK based and was UK/Dutch before that. Does it being a multinational make it American enough for you?
Not to discount your perspective, but I think it’s important to also acknowledge the close connection that you have.
My spouse is much more tuned in to things like this than many of their peers, not necessarily because they have more interest, but because we have a close relationship and so we share stuff a lot.
Same, my wife and girlfriend told me about it before I found out here. Seems to be spreading on TikTok.
Are your wife and girlfriend on good terms? 😏👉💦