How?
Militancy around Tesla, a high-value item, has been visible (and the inspiration for the Hop Off logo). Other possibilities include:
- Avoiding travel to (or work or study in) the USA - noting emerging stories of innocent people being detained for days by ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
- Not buying day-to-day items made by US companies such as food and beverages
- Not seeing/using US media: social media, cinema, television, etc.
- Being aware of your links, and dependence around, banking, consultancy, media and IT (Will Hutton in The Guardian (6/4/25) notes US dominance in these areas in the context of 'Liberation Day')
- Avoiding other services and networks like Airbnb, Facebook and Netflix
- Communicating - bearing in mind that content filters in social media may block or deprioritize your messages.
Cutting the USA completely from our lives would be impossible (see brands): after all, we adore many of its citizens and much of what the country has done. We can be realistic, do what we can, when we can, and use 'US-created' things in our favour. For example ChatGPT was very helpful in developing this site (note/link below).
Other legal tactics to get people thinking and informed:
- Turn US products upside down in supermarkets (becoming popular in Canada and similar to the tactic of turning place names upside down in France).
- As long as you do not ‘deface’, ‘defraud’, ‘deceive’ or promote a business, you can write on US bank notes: for example, ‘#boycottUSA’. See this site and video as well as a longer analysis by the Stampede.
- Salling Group labels European products with a black star.
Discuss, exchange, react:
- Reddit forum ‘BuyFromEU’ (211,000 members on 5/4/25) discussing alternatives to U.S. brands - which promotes https://www.goeuropean.org, "A community-driven directory that helps you buy European products and services, based on personal recommendations"
- Facebook groups (showing # members, if more than 10,000, at 5/4/25) in Denmark (96,000), France (28,500), Sweden (86,000). Also a global group (13,000) which, in 'About this group', has links to various related Facebook pages around the world.
Additional selected articles:
- Consumers are boycotting US goods around the world. Should Trump be worried? - The Conversation. 4/4/25
- Trump Tariffs Spark Calls to #BoycottUSA Goods – Newsweek. 3/4/25
- Foreign boycotts could register up to $83 billion hit to US GDP in 2025, Goldman Sachs says – Yahoo!finance. 2/4/25
- Boicot en Europa a Coca-Cola, McDonalds y otras empresas de EEUU: consulta las 18 marcas afectadas – elplural. 31/3/25
- Victoria’s Secret and Tesla face French boycott as anti-Trump feeling surges – Politico. 26/3/25
- BOYCOTT USA: Articles et enquêtes – nyc.fr. 23/3/25 [survey of views of 1,000 French people]
- Boicot al 'Made in America': la sociedad se revuelve contra el 'trumpismo' – Público. 15/3/25
- Boycott USA! Trump tariffs prompt backlash against US goods – DW. 14/3/25
Also see the ChatGPT exchanges (detailed and a bit meandering, but enlightening) used to develop this website. Among other things, these: caution what certain ‘content policies’ may allow, and show how social media messages need to be crafted to avoid being censored or deprioritized; indicate how to create a website without recourse to US companies; and caution which URLs may be more liable to US interference.
