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, and this article by Jeremy Ettinghausen in The Guardian (19/5/25) on the challenge of divesting): 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.
