Thanks, DonOld. The “Movement To Boycott U.S. Goods Is Spreading”

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. If you sow hostility and discontent, do not be surprised when casting those things upon the waters come back to you multiplied a thousand fold. We have a dementia patient in the Oval Office who keeps going on about how the entire world “is ripping us off.” That’s a direct quote and Trump not only says it, his genius press secretary parrots it all the time. Ergo, paranoid kid slang is now official United States policy.

I love it that Trump has decided that the Wall Street Journal knows nothing about the economy or world markets, since they’ve been making a very good living since 1889 focusing on those two things. But Trump knows more than the combined knowledge of 136 years of journalists at the outlet. Righto.

And egg prices have come down a little bit but guess what? Easter and Passover are coming up and those holidays create the highest demand for eggs all year. So what small gain has been made is about to be erased in the next few weeks. As to Trump’s all-caps scream TARIFF RELATED MONEY IS POURING INTO THE UNITED STATES, great, maybe he can tell us where to find it. Fort Knox, maybe? Color that comment delusional, as is the vast majority of what comes out of Trump’s mouth.

And while Trump and right-wing propaganda may proclaim from the rooftops money is pouring across the borders as the world quakes in awe and fear of Trump, the fact is that people around the world are pissed and there’s a movement afoot to boycott U.S. goods.

The renowned German classical violinist Christian Tetzlaff was blunt in explaining why he and his quartet have cancelled a summer tour of the US.

“There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” Tetzlaff said, describing his horror at the authoritarian polices of Donald Trump and the response of US elites to the country’s growing democratic crisis.

“I feel utter anger. I cannot go on with this feeling inside. I cannot just go and play a tour of beautiful concerts.”

Tetzlaff is not alone in acting on his disquiet. A growing international move to boycott the US is spreading from Scandinavia to Canada to the UK and beyond as consumers turn against US goods. […]

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.

Figures released this week suggested the number of Canadians taking road trips to the US – representing the majority of Canadians who normally visit – had dropped by 23% compared with February 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

While Canada and Mexico have been at the frontline of Trump’s trade war, the boycott movement is visible far beyond countries whose economies have been targeted.

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.

“I’ll replace as many American goods as I can and if many do so, it will clearly affect the supply in stores,” wrote one member of the group.

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.

“We are making it easier to shop for European brands,” its chief executive, Anders Hagh, wrote on LinkedIn, although he said the company would still stock US products.

More striking, perhaps, is the decision by companies to cut ties with the US. Norway’s largest oil bunkering operation, the privately owned Haltbakk, recently announced a boycott of its occasional supplying of fuel to US navy ships.

Referring to the fiery meeting in the White House between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump last month, the company posted on Facebook: “We have today been witnesses to the biggest shit show ever presented “live on TV” by the current American president and his vice-president.

“Huge credit to the president of Ukraine restraining himself and for keeping calm even though USA put on a backstabbing TV show. It made us sick.

“As a result, we have decided to [immediately] STOP as fuel provider to American forces in Norway and their ships calling Norwegian ports … We encourage all Norwegians and Europeans to follow our example.”

We wrote about that here last week, the Norwegian fuel company that doesn’t want to do business with the U.S. The plain fact is, Trump may live in his “disinformation bubble” as Zelensky called it, and his cult may live in theirs, but the rest of the world knows what is really going on and they think what goes on in the Oval Office is a “shitshow.” And they are right.

And you may also recall how Trump was demanding that Zelensky go on camera and “apologize” for “his behavior” in the Oval Office. That didn’t take place. That was one of the trial balloons which Trump floated to humiliate Zelensky and Zelensky didn’t buy into it. He saw it as the childish and churish ploy that it was. The only ones who lost face in the eye of the world were Trump and Musk.

Trump is doubling down on his insistence that tariffs are good and will save the day but that’s his coping mechanism. When he feels threatened, he doubles down and makes things worse. He did that with E. Jean Carroll and only gave her more ammunition with which to sue him again.

Now Trump is playing with a lot higher stakes than his own bank account, namely the coffers of the United States, but the macho mechanism is still the same: he’s got to huff and puff and threaten to blow everybody’s house down.

Trump won by a small percentage of a plurality in this nation. He doesn’t rule any other nation, they’re just forced to tolerate him because of business and trade deals that existed long before Trump and with any luck will last long past Trump — at least in some form.

All that Trump is really achieving now is to encourage the rest of the world to figure out a workaround to doing business with America. And they are. And we will suffer. The only question is how bad it gets and how soon. Because if Trump keeps going at this rate, he can kiss the House and Senate majority, razor-thin as it is, goodbye in 2026. And then good luck getting anything done.

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