That's right Americans. You voted for this. Time to suffer the consequences.
I for one do not buy products from any company where the end owner is American. I will keep doing this even if the tariffs go away. Some people may start buying American products again but I won't.
I guess I shouldn't gripe because the person did share but, I really don't like it when I get a mysterious YouTube link to a clickbait title and have no idea what I'm going to get.
So I took the pain for the team, open that baby up in a private tab and skimmed through it.
Essentially it's a series of anecdotes from shopkeepers stating that customers no longer wish to purchase American products, they've stopped selling most American alcohols, the "Buy Canadian" movement is going to directly cost 10⁶ US workers their jobs as a result, and thats just scratching the surface.
It's a little bit of editorializing, a little bit of reporting, mostly interspersed with little anecdotes like a shopkeeper saying "oh we used to sell $60,000 of California wine a week and now thats all gone, we sell Canadian and French brands now"
In response to U.S. tariffs and political rhetoric from the Trump administration, a significant consumer-led boycott of American products and travel has emerged, primarily in Canada and Europe, causing substantial economic repercussions for the United States.
Key points:
Canadian Consumer Boycott: A "Buy Canada" movement has taken hold, with 71% of Canadian consumers intending to buy fewer American goods. This has forced retailers like Vince's Market to reduce U.S. produce from 70% to 30% of their stock and replace American products with Canadian or other international alternatives.
Impact on U.S. Goods: The boycott is projected to cost the U.S. economy up to $90 billion. The U.S. alcohol industry has been hit especially hard, facing retaliatory tariffs and being pulled from Canadian shelves, leading to what one retailer described as "evaporated" sales.
Decline in Tourism: Travel to the U.S. has sharply declined. Visits from Canada (the top source of U.S. tourism) have dropped significantly, as have visitors from Europe. This is resulting in billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue and hurting businesses in U.S. border states.
Global Spread & Broader Impact: The movement has spread to Europe, where consumers are also rejecting U.S. brands like Tesla. This widespread backlash is contributing to a projected slowdown in global GDP growth.
Long-Term Effects: While there is hope that trade tensions may eventually ease, the report suggests that the damage to American brands may be long-lasting and that consumer buying habits may have permanently shifted.
Transcript
00:00 - This section here traditionally would have been filled with U.S.
00:03 - corn. Customers love it because it's a great product.
00:05 - What started as a big display has been shrunk.
00:08 - In response to U.S.
00:09 - tariffs and President Trump's threats to annex Canada,
00:11 - 71% of Canadian consumers say they intend to buy fewer American
00:15 - products this year.
00:16 - That's having an impact.
00:18 - The US economy could lose up to 0.3% of its GDP,
00:21 - or about $90 billion, in 2025, due to the boycott of
00:25 - American goods and the decline in foreign tourism.
00:28 - Giancarlo Marchi is the owner of Vince's Market,
00:31 - a Canadian grocery store chain with four locations.
00:34 - He's seen the backlash firsthand.
00:36 - Talk to me a bit about how the Bike Canada movement has affected you at
00:40 - the grocery store.
00:41 - Our customers are demanding from us as much Canadian product as
00:44 - possible. They're getting frustrated and upset when they see
00:47 - too much US product.
00:48 - We've obviously seen the very visible and visceral reaction from
00:51 - markets to US policies, but it's very interesting to see
00:55 - from the consumer side what impact it's having and these little acts
00:59 - of activism from consumers who have decided to turn their back on
01:02 - certain US products.
01:04 - If there was a Canadian version in an American version,
01:06 - we probably already delisted the American version in support of the
01:11 - Canadian product, because that's what our customers
01:12 - are looking for.
01:14 - In several countries, including Canada and Mexico,
01:16 - and some in the European Union, are responding to aggressive U.S.
01:19 - trade policies with retaliatory tariffs of their own.
01:22 - The US tariffs look like they're going to last for the duration of
01:26 - the Trump administration in one form or another,
01:29 - that's going to keep other countries kind of in a negative
01:32 - mood towards U.S.
01:34 - goods and services.
01:36 - So what impact is the boycott on U.S.
01:38 - goods and travel having?
01:39 - And is this just a political statement or a permanent shift in
01:43 - buying behavior? Cnbc went to Canada to find out.
01:47 - No text
01:48 - Vince Market got its start in Toronto in 1986 and serves about
01:53 - 30,000 customers weekly.
01:54 - March was when the real tariff threat was like all the news.
01:57 - We had Canada flags everywhere in the store.
02:00 - Markey says. Since then, his customers have moved decisively
02:03 - away from U.S. products.
02:04 - At the height of when we are out of Canada.
02:06 - Growing season, we could be upwards of 60% 70% American produce.
02:11 - Okay. Right now we're only running at about 30%.
02:14 - Canadian flags and labels marked domestic goods and aisles,
02:18 - while apps like Maple Scan help shoppers identify origin.
02:21 - You take a photo of a product, the app will scan what that product
02:24 - is, figure out what it is the label,
02:26 - look up information online about it.
02:29 - Essentially compile all that information together into a product
02:32 - page to kind of give you information about,
02:34 - like the company's history, who it's been owned by in the past
02:38 - versus now. What are its Canadian ties?
02:40 - But some items are hard to replace.
02:43 - Mangoes and pears you can get from different parts of the world when
02:45 - you get into things like Andrew and Bartlett pears.
02:47 - Right now, you can only get them from the United States.
02:50 - The most in demand and the hardest ones to replace from the US is
02:53 - typically berries, citrus and greens.
02:57 - Lettuce.
02:58 - If there is produce from the US and produce from Canada and they're the
03:02 - same, of course I'll go Canadian.
03:04 - Of course.
03:05 - We've always been very pro Canadian,
03:07 - even way before all this stuff happen.
03:10 - This just reinforced it.
03:11 - Canada is America's second largest food export market,
03:14 - worth $28.4 billion in 2024.
03:18 - The boycott has impacted other parts of the store,
03:20 - too. How is that affecting kind of these perceived American products
03:24 - like Coca-Cola or Lay's?
03:26 - Yeah, Coca-Cola and laser, great examples of global brands.
03:29 - They actually bottle Coke bottles in Canada about an hour and 30
03:32 - minutes north of here. Frito-lay uses Canadian potatoes.
03:35 - There would have been no identification of where Frito-Lay
03:38 - products were made. It would have been small and on the back.
03:41 - Once they realized that they were getting a bad rap,
03:44 - they went ahead and they added Made in Canada labels permanently onto
03:49 - the bags.
03:49 - American staples like wine, beer and spirits have seen the
03:52 - biggest change being wiped off Canadian shelves.
03:55 - Earlier this year, multiple Canadian provinces
03:57 - announced they were pulling American alcohol from their store
04:00 - shelves, and in March, Canada imposed a 25% tariff on all
04:04 - US alcohol products, a 25% tariff on distilled spirits.
04:08 - Imports from Mexico and Canada could cost more than 31,000 U.S.
04:12 - jobs.
04:13 - So we're in our wine section now.
04:15 - Our wine business, you know, roughly 35,
04:17 - 40% of our red wine sales is California cabs and blends.
04:21 - So that's $60,000 a week in sales that are just gone.
04:23 - They've evaporated from the United States.
04:26 - We're replacing it and we're replacing it with import wines from
04:29 - France, from South Africa, from Australia,
04:31 - from New Zealand in 2024.
04:34 - Canada was the US's top export market for alcohol,
04:37 - exporting, $435 million worth of wine,
04:40 - $221 million in distilled spirits, and $41 million in beer to Canada.
04:46 - The loss to the U.S.
04:48 - is a boon to Canada, with the Buy Canada movement adding
04:51 - roughly $10 billion to the country's economy.
04:54 - Giancarlo thinks if the tariff dispute is resolved,
04:56 - the boycott might ease, but it's unlikely every customer
04:59 - will go back to buying American.
05:01 - So I actually just had to respond to a customer from last week that
05:04 - came in and felt like we had too much American product,
05:07 - and they had told us they're not going to shop at our store anymore.
05:09 - And just like shelves are being cleared of American products,
05:12 - international travelers are clearing their travel plans to
05:15 - America, turning away from the country as a destination.
05:19 - No text
05:23 - More Canadians visit the US each year than from any other country.
05:27 - In 2024, 20 million Canadians visited the US,
05:30 - generating $20.5 billion in spending.
05:34 - But the flow is slowing.
05:35 - Online travel searches from Canada to the US dropped 50% this spring.
05:40 - If you look at Canadian drive traffic,
05:41 - it was down nearly 30% in March.
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I live in a low income area. It's rural. It's one of the poorest places in the country. Lots of people are trying. They may not be able to go all in but they're trying.
People do what they can. Big spenders would also have a larger impact on the boycott than low income. So let low income households get the deals on US produce and have them save some money! We saw strawberries from the US for $1.70 yesterday. I can’t ever remember seeing them that cheap here. And they looked really good too! I hope that helps families that might not be able to afford them usually or only rarely!
My household spends a fair bit on quality ingredients and we are making sure none of our money goes to the US. Even if it costs us more.
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