While tens of thousands of people have joined Facebook groups in Sweden and Denmark calling for no longer buying American, Norwegian company Haltbakk Bunkers has announced that it will stop supplying US military vessels with fuel.
I’m trying to think, apart from technology, what do I buy from American brands?
American food doesn’t really come here except fast food franchises which I don’t frequent anyway.
Nobody has an American car.
My car’s electric anyway, so no American oil companies fueling it.
Clothes are probably all from Asia anyway.
I don’t subscribe to any streaming services.
I’ll order 5 or 6 things from Amazon a year. So that’s easy to stop.
Sure there might be the odd brand that is unknowingly American, but I’m left asking “What does America export?” because I can’t think of much in my life.
There’s Chips from companies like intel and Software like Windows from Microsoft and Mac from Apple. Then there’s digital infrastructure like Amazon and social media, or even credit cards can come from the US.
It’s also not just buying software that supports the US but using it can too, because they can use their data for advertising and other goals. So you should move to open source alternatives for software that Europe doesn’t have any good alternative for (eg. Linux instead of Windows) or find a European alternative.
A lot of supermarket food brands are American. You might be surprised if you start looking. Both my deodorant and toothpaste is from Unilever, for instance.
American cars are niche, but somewhat popular where I live. There’s 3 companies specializing in selling and servicing American cars here in Estonia that I can think of right away, but probably more in total. But the new American car sales aren’t very good because they’re all so massive and expensive, the only target audience is people who like to show off AND have a lot of cash (or a lot of them are company cars tbh, you can register a big ass pick-up truck as an N1 cargo van and spend less tax if you use it for personal purposes, compared to using an M1 passenger car for personal purposes. Somehow. I don’t remember the specifics).
I’d absolutely be buying myself a GMC Yukon Denali or maybe a Lincoln Navigator if 1) I was living in America with the wide ass roads and big parking spots, and everyone else driving big trucks too, 2) It had a V8 diesel available instead of the V8 petrol engine and 3) I had way too much money to spend.
This sounds great. But if you didn’t buy anything in the first place there’s also zero effect of boycotting. Then the movement can of course succeed quite easily, but at no net gain.
I feel like you tried to dodge the elephant in the room: the tech. The hardest part to get rid of is the technology, and in particularly the tech stack. Social media, servers, windows, outlook… The dependency is real at all levels, and I’ve yet to hear of any company trying to escape. This is also where I believe the boycott will fail at an consumer level, people will keep using META, stream from Netflix, order from Amazon etc. Since people are still using these, so will our companies and politicians.
That is a great point. It’s indeed really tricky to e.g., build a modern pc without American owned semiconductor companies when it comes to processors and graphic cards. There’s like… British ARM processors which isn’t really suited for most applications.
I’m trying to think, apart from technology, what do I buy from American brands?
Sure there might be the odd brand that is unknowingly American, but I’m left asking “What does America export?” because I can’t think of much in my life.
There’s Chips from companies like intel and Software like Windows from Microsoft and Mac from Apple. Then there’s digital infrastructure like Amazon and social media, or even credit cards can come from the US.
It’s also not just buying software that supports the US but using it can too, because they can use their data for advertising and other goals. So you should move to open source alternatives for software that Europe doesn’t have any good alternative for (eg. Linux instead of Windows) or find a European alternative.
I already use Linux though. Don’t even drive and my bike is British. Most of the stuff we buy is German as we shop at Aldi.
Which is why I excluded technology.
A lot of supermarket food brands are American. You might be surprised if you start looking. Both my deodorant and toothpaste is from Unilever, for instance.
Unilever is English/Dutch so I don’t think they’re a concern.
Unilever is UK based and was UK/Dutch before that. Does it being a multinational make it American enough for you?
Hmm I guess I was misinformed. Unilever was included in one of those “boycott US” posts recently.
American cars are niche, but somewhat popular where I live. There’s 3 companies specializing in selling and servicing American cars here in Estonia that I can think of right away, but probably more in total. But the new American car sales aren’t very good because they’re all so massive and expensive, the only target audience is people who like to show off AND have a lot of cash (or a lot of them are company cars tbh, you can register a big ass pick-up truck as an N1 cargo van and spend less tax if you use it for personal purposes, compared to using an M1 passenger car for personal purposes. Somehow. I don’t remember the specifics).
I’d absolutely be buying myself a GMC Yukon Denali or maybe a Lincoln Navigator if 1) I was living in America with the wide ass roads and big parking spots, and everyone else driving big trucks too, 2) It had a V8 diesel available instead of the V8 petrol engine and 3) I had way too much money to spend.
This sounds great. But if you didn’t buy anything in the first place there’s also zero effect of boycotting. Then the movement can of course succeed quite easily, but at no net gain.
I feel like you tried to dodge the elephant in the room: the tech. The hardest part to get rid of is the technology, and in particularly the tech stack. Social media, servers, windows, outlook… The dependency is real at all levels, and I’ve yet to hear of any company trying to escape. This is also where I believe the boycott will fail at an consumer level, people will keep using META, stream from Netflix, order from Amazon etc. Since people are still using these, so will our companies and politicians.
Well exactly. Tech is about the only thing I can think of boycotting. I can certainly do services with little harm, but hardware is difficult.
Ah, now I understand!
That is a great point. It’s indeed really tricky to e.g., build a modern pc without American owned semiconductor companies when it comes to processors and graphic cards. There’s like… British ARM processors which isn’t really suited for most applications.
Arm isn’t even owned by Brits anymore. SoftBank has a majority holding in them (Japan)