Throughout Europe and Canada, a consumer boycott movement against U.S. goods is growing in response to President Trump’s and his administration’s potential trade war and territorial threats. From removing items from shelves to marking European-made products, citizens create resistance.
An Ontarian strolls into a liquor store and finds empty shelves where the Kentucky bourbon should lie. A Dane walks into a grocery store and spots tiny black stars across the price tags of their favorite Barbecue Sauce. A Parisian swipes through Facebook and is recommended a group named “BOYCOTT USA: Achetez Français et Européen!” All these incidents have something in common.
Since January 2025, European and Canadian citizens have been fighting back against the tariffs and bully politics the United States enacted through consumer boycotts—and the movement is rapidly growing.
The people of these countries became compelled to fight back as President Trump threatened a trade war. Canada employed resistance once the U.S. enacted widespread 25 percent tariffs, along with comments from the President calling for Canada to be the 51st state. Denmark is angry because of threats from President Trump to “get Greenland,” which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Even advocating for the use of military force to do so.
These actions have meant that people are rebelling against the U.S. on a large and small scale. Multiple Canadian provinces have removed all American liquor from their shelves. Along with Ottawa shredding a 100-million-dollar contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink and adding its own tariffs against the U.S., Denmark’s largest grocery stores, Bilka, føtex, and Netto, have added black stars to the electronic price tags of European-made goods. The CEO of Salling Group Anders Hagh, the corporation who owns the grocers, explained, after receiving multiple
inquiries about delineating products, “The new label is an additional service for customers who want to buy goods with European labels.”
Beyond the physical world, people across the internet have begun to voice their anger at the United States. Besides the French, “Bojkotta varor från U.S.A.,” a Swedish Facebook group, has gained 81,000 members since January 19, 2025, along with the non-affiliated r/BoycottUnitesStates subreddit, which has gained 23,000 members since its creation early last month.
There is a vast potential economic and social impact if these boycotts were to continue for an extended period.
Take, for example, the American consumer good bourbon whiskey.
In a joint statement, CNIT, the Distilled Spirits Council, and Spirits Canada—the spirit trade organization of Mexico, the U.S.A., and Canada—describe how these tariffs would collapse all the collaborative work they have conducted since the 90s. During this period of tariff-free trade, “U.S.-Canada trade in spirits increased by 147%”. With one pen stroke, the U.S. sent this cooperation into turmoil.
Canada is the largest consumer of American spirits behind the U.S. In 2023, Canadians drank fifty million liters of whisky, and whisky is the country’s second favorite spirit, according to Statista’s Alcohol Consumption in Canada report. Now that bourbon is off the shelves in many provinces, this means one state is singled out to bear the brunt of losing Canadian customers.
95 percent of all Bourbon whisky is produced in Kentucky, creating a 9 billion-dollar industry. According to the Kentucky Distillers Association, these boycotts and tariffs will rattle the communities of farmers, distillers, packagers, and all other affiliated workers who rely on Kentucky’s famous spirit for their livelihoods.
Boycotting bourbon hurts everything from small distilleries to publicly traded companies. Brown-Forman Corporation, the spirit conglomerate behind Jack Daniels Bourbon, has seen stock prices fall 6.38 percent since the beginning of the year as of time of writing. With its CEO, in the company’s quarterly earnings call, stating boycotts are “ worse than a tariff because it’s literally taking your sales away completely.”
Bourbon is just one example of an American good currently being hurt by the trade war and boycotts. Canada and The United States rely heavily on each other for trade, with the U.S. exporting 26 billion dollars to Canada and Canada sending 38 billion dollars in goods back in January 2025. But Canada, as America’s second-largest trade partner, because of the unexpected tariffs, its citizens feel the need to boycott and become less reliant on Canada’s erratic neighbor to the south.
The Danish resistance is set to have less of an economic impact, as the U.S. only exported 370 million dollars in goods to Denmark in January 2025, and most of that is crude petroleum; however, this boycott is more meant to express the citizenry’s anger, as, according to the Guardian’s polling, 46% see the U.S. as either “a very big threat” or “a fairly big threat.”
In a BT article, Jens Ladefoged, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, points out that boycotts are also symbolic acts that create social pressure against their target. For example, despite small economic impact, boycotts were a critical tool used in 1980s apartheid South Africa to place pressure on the government. Consumer symbols, such as black stars on labels, create constant reminders, enabling people to think about their choices.
There seems to be no end to President Trump’s erratic trade policy. The President has flip-flopped on enforcing tariffs, keeping many, reducing some, and eliminating others. Still, the people of the countries they affect have felt the need to fight back in any way they can.
The boycott movement is as young as the second Trump presidency, two months into the new administration has meant two months of consumer resistance. There are many directions the world of trade can take in the next four years; And still, the citizens of Europe and Canada are ready to resist however they can, symbolically or economically, even if that means sacrificing bourbon from their whisky sours.