‘I feel utter anger’: from Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading

In Canada, where the American national anthem has been booed during hockey matches with US teams, a slew of apps has emerged with names such as “buy beaver”, “maple scan” and “is this Canadian” to allow shoppers to scan QR barcodes and reject US produce from alcohol to pizza toppings.

[…]

In Sweden, more than 70,000 users have joined a Facebook group calling for a boycott of US companies – ironically including Facebook itself – which features alternatives to US consumer products.

[…]

In Denmark, where there has been widespread anger over Trump’s threat to bring the autonomous territory of Greenland under US control, the largest grocery company, the Salling group, has said it will tag European-made goods with a black star to allow consumers to choose them over products made in the US.
↫ Peter Beaumont at the Guardian

These are just a few of the examples of a growing interest in places like Canada and Europe to boycott American products to the best of one’s ability. It’s impossible to boycott everything coming from a certain country – good luck finding a computer without American software and/or hardware, for instance – but these small acts of disapproval and resistance allow people to vent their anger. It’s clearly already having an effect on Tesla, whose sales have completely collapsed in Europe, so much so that the president of the United States has to do his best Billy Mays impression in front of the White House to help his buddy sell cars.

Very classy.

With the United States threatening war on Canada, Greenland and Denmark, and Panama, it’s only natural for citizens of those countries, as well as those of close friends of those countries, to want do something, and being more mindful or what you spend your money on is a tried and true way to do that. Technology can definitely help here, as we’ve talked about before, and as shown in the linked article. While no tool to determine place of origin of products will ever be perfect, it can certainly help to avoid products you don’t want to buy.

I can only hope this doesn’t get even more out of hand than it already has. The United States started a trade war with the European Union today as well, and of course, the EU retaliated. I doubt the average person has any clue just how intertwined the global economy and supply chains are, and that the only people paying for this are people like you and I. The tech billionaires and career politicians won’t be the ones screwed over by surging prices of basic necessities because of tariffs, and it won’t be the children of the rich and powerful being sent to war with Canada or Panama or whatever.

The very companies that OSNews has reported on for almost 30 years are the ones pushing and enabling most of this vile nonsense, so yes, you will be seeing items about this here, whether you and I like it or not. Only cowards and the privileged have the luxury of ignoring what the United States is doing right now.