“Tired of financing American imperialism? Take action,” reads the description of a Facebook group started in France that encourages members to support the French and European economies by refusing to buy products made in the United States.
The Boycott USA: Buy French and European! group was created on February 28 and has already amassed more than 20,000 followers sharing tips on how to replace popular US brands such as McDonalds, Levi’s and WhatsApp with local equivalents.
Across northern Europe, similar grassroots movements are popping up. Two Swedish Facebook groups both have around 80,000 members as does a Danish group, with smaller groups up and running in the Netherlands and Belgium.
“It’s not just a question of blindly boycotting everything, but of consciously directing our wallets towards solutions that are most beneficial to the local, French and European economy,” wrote the French group’s founder, Édouard Roussez, in a post.
The group’s members share extensive lists of US brands to avoid – even though, in a globalised world, defining what counts as “American” is not always easy. Coca-Cola, for example, has a large factory in northern France. So would a boycott hurt French workers?
According to Roussez, the point of the Facebook group is to discuss such cases. The only US brands that he advises people to avoid “as a priority” are ones such as Amazon and Tesla, which financed Trump’s presidential campaign.
Buying European
There are signs that the boycotts could be starting to having an impact.
In France, instant messaging application Treebal, which is based in Brittany, has increased its membership by 200 new users per day since Trump’s inauguration. It says the growth is due to users rejecting US-based platforms such as X and Whatsapp, whose CEOs have aligned themselves with the US president.
In Denmark, opposition to the Trump administration has soared due to his repeated threats to take control of the autonomous territory of Greenland, which is part of the kingdom of Denmark.
Read moreGreenland’s centre-right opposition wins election dominated by Trump pledge
The CEO of the country’s leading grocery retailer, the Salling Group’s Anders Hagh, said in late February that its supermarkets would introduce a new system of electronic tags marking European products with a black star to accommodate “a number of inquiries from customers who want to buy groceries from European brands”.
Perhaps the most dramatic impact of European boycotts has been seen with Tesla, the automotive and energy company owned by Trump ally-cum-senior adviser Elon Musk, which has seen sales of its electronic vehicles drop by 50 percent in Europe compared with last year.
The company also experienced a significant drop in sales in Canada, where a boycott on US produce, endorsed by former prime minister Justin Trudeau, is in full swing.
Rising prices
But could the European boycotts do real damage to the US economy?
“Generally, any impact of a boycott will be most likely felt by the corporations rather than on the wider economy; consumers will buy a different car brand rather than not buy a car at all,” says Alan Bradshaw, professor of marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London.
As such, while US brands like Tesla may suffer, boycotts are unlikely to seriously undermine the wider economy, in part due to their relatively small scale.
Read moreTesla sales drop sharply in Europe as Elon Musk faces backlash over involvement in politics
Online groups might have attracted tens of thousands of members, “but there’s hundreds of millions of people who live in Europe, and lots of them couldn’t care less where something is made”, says Meredith A. Crowley, professor of economics at the University of Cambridge.
Even so, one possible impact of targeted boycotts is a rise in prices for consumers – perhaps even for those doing the boycotting. “Domestic brands within Europe, as they wouldn’t have so much competition from American brands, would have the power to raise their prices,” Crowley says.
“The most likely impact for consumers will be the consequences of what happens in supply chains with the costs of raw materials rising,” says Bradshaw.
“We may well find popular products that we don’t associate with America becoming more expensive or disappearing from our shelves.”
Tariff wars
European consumers are already likely to face price hikes due to tariffs worth $28 billion announced by the EU in response to US tariffs of 25 percent on steel and aluminium imports, which came into effect on Wednesday.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that the EU “deeply regretted” implementing the tariffs as “they are bad for business, and even worse for consumers”.
But Crowley says matching US tariffs – as Canada and China have done – “might be the only way to bring the US to a negotiating table” when dealing with a leader like Trump, who favours an aggressive, impromptu approach over the rule-based multilateral trading system that usually informs trade practices.
In response to the EU tariffs, the US president pledged on Thursday to introduce a 200 percent tariff on wine and alcoholic drinks if the EU did not lift its tariff on US whisky.
“Even more reason to boycott things made in the USA,” wrote one French boycotter.
For many, rejecting US products is a way to show opposition to Trump’s politics, rather than to the United States itself.
“I travel to the Unites States one or two times a year, and I’ve cancelled my trips in May and October,” wrote another. “I’ll go back in a few years. This year I’m planning to go to Canada.”
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