Avoiding US goods and services – from tech to whisky to air travel – has forced many to find a new way of living
This week the US imposed 50% tariffs on US$20bn (£15bn) of Canadian goods, and Mark Carney, the country’s prime minister, has vowed to match them “dollar for dollar” after the collapse of trade talks between the two countries last weekend. Donald Trump retaliated on Thursday by ordering the federal government to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
Such actions have added fuel to a widespread boycott of US products and services by Canadians that began early last year in response to the president’s trade war and threats to annex his northern neighbour.
More than 3,500 people from across Canada shared with the Guardian via an online callout how they have made changes to their lives in response to the US administration’s political and economic stance. Many expressed deep anger and sadness, but remained resolute that this was now a new way of living.
“I think you need to be in Canada to understand how deep the animosity to the US is”
I too have deep animosity for the US, and I live here
You need to be in Canada to understand how deep the animosity to the US is.
If there is one thing US citizens and non-US citizens can agree upon, it’s that the US can fuck right off.
You are free to leave.
I would, but I can’t just cross the border and declare myself a citizen of another country
So, no, I’m not. I’m kind of stuck here
Trust me, if England or Canada or Australia or Scotland, or Ireland, hell, maybe even Switzerland or France or Germany, etc… said I was free to live there for the rest of my life, I’d start packing my shit tonight
Forget Switzerland. You can’t afford it. Also they are very weird. You know, isolation does things to people.
I taught English in Asia for 10 years. For most countries, you just need to have an employable skill they need (Canada in particular likes tech workers, China, Vietnam and South Korea love oral English teachers, as do many Middle East countries like the UAE or even Turkey). Or, if you have a decent enough pension check, they’ll let you move right in and grant you residency. So no, you’re not “stuck” here. Your brain might be “stuck”, but you certainly aren’t. As well, you can set up a joint-venture business with a citizen of a different nation, and your business visa can be converted to a residence visa if the venture proves successful.
And a big thanks to the downvoters – always finding reasons to hate!
I upvoted everything and everyone in this thread for the record. Keep fighting, it’s a good fight and makes me think.
My age is a bit of a factor
I also have a family so it’s not just me
I’ve looked. Nothing too crazy but I’ve explored the idea of getting my child out of a part of the world where people think teachers should have guns
I met plenty of people who were older, married, with kids who taught English overseas. No different than teaching here (except for the food, which in many cases was better than here!). Seriously.
But you are clearly writing over-generalization checks that life refuses to cash. SOME Americans think teachers should have guns, and they have their reasons. MOST Americans don’t want guns in the classrooms for obvious reasons. Everyone has a right to their beliefs and opinions. Nobody deserves to be generalized or compartmentalized into a group. You just did both.
Personally, I think you’re converting your own lack of follow-through for your own family’s future into misplaced contempt for a nation that (unlike most) will actually allow you to leave. You said earlier that you can’t just “show up and be a citizen” in other countries (because they have rules), and tried to blame America for it. Then, when I showed you that you could, you said “it’s not for me” and then expressed even more contempt for the country I just gave you a way out of.
Grow up. Quit bitching.
Stop being mean. I get it. I get like that too, but it’s bad and we should both stop and let our words speak for themselves.
I’m trying to go to England, not Singapore. Pretty sure they don’t need Americans to teach the English how to speak English
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I never said anything about Singapore so please quit lying and putting words in my mouth I never said (although I did date an incredible girl from there, I just liked Malaysia better). And as Singapore was an English colony (prior to the American colonies), they already speak English better than you and I ever will.
Are you really trying to blame America because England spoke English before America even existed? Just wow…
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For anyone interested about companies that have made massive strides since the tariffs:
alt for google : proton (switzerland)
alt browser: vivaldi (norway/germany)
alt search engine : qwant (france) ecosia (germany)
alt for note taking : joplin(england)
alt for win : lunix. (global) -free
alt for mfp: kazio (new zealand)
alt for fitbit : polar (finland)
alt for phones : fairphone (netherlands /china)
alt for github : codeberg (germany)
alt for amazon : shop app (shopify canada)
alt for music : deezer (france)
for books : kobo (canada)
alt for ms office : libreoffice (germany) free
alt card wallet : catima
alt for cloud: nord(lithuania)
alt for streaming : make a jellyfin server - free (throw it on ubuntu (england) start hosting your own stuff local). i suppose also plex but that is a californian company.
alt to paypal : klarna (europe) - that said we still do need more ecommerce to be supportive of alternatives for this and card wallets other than google pay. this is really lagging behind.
Man, fuck Shopify. Tobin is a shitsmear of a human.
If you look at all the current e-commerce alternatives : they are all dirt to dirt. shop just doesnt happen to be american dirt if you’re attempting the route of voting with the wallet.
unless you have a good alternative. i’ll wait for you to post it to help others find better options.
No you’re right. I’m being totally serious when I say we can’t swap platforms each time a CEO comes out as a fascist. It’s just too troublesome because we could be doing actual good instead of looking for another obscure platform that doesn’t quite meet our needs.
I’m just lucky because I’m in Japan and I have some more alternatives, but even something like Rakuten is probably not 100% fascism-free (iirc, their mobile segment has a contract with Starlink).
yeah it seems no matter what they are all in bed with eachother. it’s a real thin plank we walk here. i am just hopeful we see more alternatives spring up that throw this power ball off it’s tracks or another election settles it a bit easier for more alternatives.
hopefully Canada can get closer ties to europe (who i understand are not perfect either) but as far as sustainable survival would likely be a more comfortable fit.
Another one? Do we mass produce these assholes for some reason? Because I feel that somewhere along the production line there is fat to trim.
I think it’s just really hard to be a big tech CEO unless you’re willing to shit down many people’s throats.
Many such cases.
Most companies deliver now. So you can just shop online at local stores and have things delivered instead of using Amazon.
Ups for Deezer! I’ve been using for over 3 years. Good stuff!
It’s more than that for me. Many products I bring into Canada from Europe come into the country via a warehouse or subsidiary in the US before landing in Canada.
I’ve stopped importing their products even though they’re not American.
I want to source their products direct or work with them to build out distribution here in Canada.
We need to change the worldview that America is the centre piece. Their fascists and what we’re seeing is a symptom of what America really is. Boycott them.
Yeah, I’m annoyed at a lot of transformed food products saying “made in Canada from imported produce”. Basically American diarrhea spreaders. Ain’t buying food that will kill us.
I’ve successfully cut the use of nearly every American product or service since last year. Genuinely worth it and enriches your life. You just realize how enshitified everything is.
I don’t think the American public has understood how these are permanent lifestyle changes. Any trade agreement, getting alcohol back on the shelves, will make these people change that. Tourists are gone. People will not cross the border with the risk of being sent to concentration camps in chains over minor bullshit.
Yup. I want a Canadian branded phone. I’m looking at a Motorola phone. I’ve heard they have a version coming out with grapheneOS that’s open sourced and was started by a Canadian.
Right now, I’m still stuck with a lot of US tech that I’m chained to. I’m looking to unchain that tech, but those are harder to come by.
I do have a smart watch though. It’s called UNA Watch. It’s the first user repairable / replaceable modular watch and it’s designed and produced (I believe) in house in Scotland. It’s still early development, but I’m hopeful it’ll help unshackle more US tech off my body.
Tech is relatively easy to not buy American. Most of it is made in Asia, there are many companies that are based in Asia and pretty much all of the tech manufacturing is done in Asia.
For phones there’s Samsung (Korea), Sony (Japan), Acer (Taiwan). There’s a bunch from China, though I try to avoid China products too for similar reasons as avoiding US products.
i have a polar watch (finland) i notice that any of these alternatives are taking a lot of strides the moment they get support.
will check out this UNA too!
Motorola/Lenovo gets a close to pass for me for being a Chinese/American conglomerate. Lenovo is preferable to HP or Dell in my eyes. Especially because of BDS.
For phones I buy from Nothing/CMF. British company, made mostly in China and India I believe. I suspect they might drop a Graphene compatible device sometime. It seems to fit their brand.
Thanks for the watch recommendation. Ill look that up!
There’s also Fairphone, which I think is Dutch
Tourists are gone. People will not cross the border with the risk of being sent to concentration camps in chains over minor bullshit.
Conceptually and culturally I agree that this should be happening, but for reasons I can’t understand, the numbers and data hardly show a drop.
Are you sure about that? Every metric I’ve seen show considerable reductions and returning growth is relatively minuscule.
A 25% drop is quite catastrophic for an entire sector like tourism.
https://fortune.com/article/how-are-canadians-snubbing-us-travel-tariffs-tourism/
There are select articles you can find like this, especially about Las Vegas specifically, but I find them to be unconvincing clickbait. The FIFA World Cup and the upcoming Olympics were and are projected to still be packed full of visitors. It’s very disheartening. It seems to me like most people still take the “yeah but it won’t happen to me” attitude toward the stupid fascist thugs.
I think you’re both correct - Canadian tourism is down dramatically, but overall tourism is, inexplicably, holding or recovering. All the figures I can find for tourism show that thus far 2026 is on track to meet the projected ~6% recovery vs 2025. It makes sense I guess - for example, fucking Dubai is still a major tourist destination.
Would make sense, if there’s a decline, prices will drop and attract new people from elsewhere.
Data shows something like a 30% drop in Canadian visits to the US, which is wild when you consider that ‘visits’ number includes things like work crossings for those who work across the border.
CBC has done a whole bunch of articles looking at CBSA stats.
Yeeep. Unfortunately, Lemmy is tiny and really doesn’t have a diverse collection of viewpoints - what we do here just can’t be taken as an indication of broad cultural trends. Everyone talking about permanent lifestyle changes and similar in response to this are totally correct about themselves, but if history has shown us anything it’s that People will stop caring as soon as it’s out of the news cycle. There hasn’t been any big news about deportations or similar, and as a result tourism is slowly climbing back up. Hell, the World Cup in the US was the most attended world cup in history - iirc by almost +50%
I hope very much that the world can take this orange opportunity to really destroy the notion of American exceptionalism through independence and cooperation. I truly believe having it as a founding cornerstone of our national identity is at the heart of most of our problems.
I find it very weird that trade between Canada and Europe is going through USA.
Isn’t it possible to have more efficient shipping route to Canada than USA?It’s really not weird at all. It’s the same in EU. If I order something from another continent. Chances are pretty high it’s going to go through Germany before making its way up here to Sweden.
Canada is 40 million to the US 350. So it makes more sense to have things go through the country where your biggest market is, and have it distributed out from there.
Ofc I’m just speaking very broadly. There’s a difference if you import directly yourself, or if they’re going through a Canadian vendor
youre channelling through a large country who are shackled to their own country’s stuff. it isnt going to get the acknowledgement you think it will get there. US are simply benefitting from being invoved in the supply chain without having to be a trade partner.
youre channelling through a large country who are shackled to their own country’s stuff. it isnt going to get the acknowledgement you think it will get there.
I have genuinly no idea what you’re trying to say.
Canadian companies are more than welcome to set up their own distribution channels and not route it through the US. Nothing is stopping them.
You said 40 mill is less a target than 350 mill hence why you think it’s preferred to travel by the 360 mill as if they’d take any interest of you.
I’m correcting you on this. The 350 mill has no interest in anything they already get within their own country. You can’t compete with that. You’re just forking over money for having the luxury of transit and tariff and no benefit of trade with the 350 mill.
What is it you think you’re correcting? This is how it works. It’s happening right now. And has been happening for decades.
goods ordered from Europe, to Canada, that only transits the US, is not affected by US tariffs. Because it’s not being imported to the US.
Items can still arrive in a US port, be taken inland for further processing and distribution. And then whatever is supposed to go up to Canada goes up to Canada.
the only time Foreign goods to Canada is subjected to US tariffs, is if a US company has taken ownership, and sell the product to Canada, rather than selling the transportation service
ok so you said you legitimately didnt know what i meant. i see you played ignorant as a bad faith move to waste my energy in a shitty little flame war. you can go huff farts troll.
No in Europe most goes through Netherlands because it’s the best geographical placement. Especially for Germany that is the biggest market of a single country.
It doesn’t go to Norway which is further away, or Spain which is also further away. It is going the most practical route which is often through the Netherlands.Seem to me that goods going between Canada and Europe going over USA is sending it on a detour, that makes the shipping route longer. Having it go over USA first is like having it go over Mexico, except less extreme.
It depends on what it is you’re buying and how it’s getting there. If I’m ordering something from China. I’m not gonna get it shipped. Because that will take ages. It’ll go on a transport plane. And every single time I’ve ordered things, they’ve been flown to Germany first.
Items being shipped between Europe and NA is not going on a detour to land in the US. Especially not if it’s imported by a vendor. The vendor will pick the cheapest option. And trucking through Canadian wilderness isn’t it.
On eBay I bought my son a Pokemon game that was in HK. Consider me surprised when I had to pay duties for it to come from America to Canada. Paid an additional 15$. Why could it not ship direct to Canada? Lord knows.
It has to do with rail connections and port capacities. If stuff comes in by ports, even air freight, rail hubs in the Eastern US are more central.
Otherwise it has to come into the port of Montreal, inland ports beyond the Seaway don’t accommodate every ship size and are lower volume.
In Ontario, I believe it’ll be more likely for products to come into Canada through both Montreal and Eastern US ports. Whereas in Quebec it’s usually not the case. New York and Montreal are similar distances to Toronto by rail.
It’s probably something you have to consider via carriers.
I hope the boycott doesn’t stop even after if ever the regime changes. US will stay the same, what happened today can happen tomorrow.
I think the boycotts will mostly continue even after Trump. Once people make an effort to change brands, they’ll probably not go back, and people will get used to going on vacation in places other than the US. A lot of trade is being re-routed to Europe and Asia, once supply chains shift, we probably won’t be shifting them back any time soon.
European here. Avoiding American stuff wherever possible since a while.
Sneakers, clothing, Linux rather than Windows, tech, ketchup and so forth.
Not sure what the impact will be, if any, but hopefully it will help a bit somehow.
As an American, I’m right there with you Canada. I’ve been giving your country all my tourism money for the past 2 years since the orange dipshit became president again. You deserve it more than this shitty country does.
For me a major concern was American surveillance and law enforcement backdoors. A country with no concern for international law or human rights should not have that kind of supranational power. I’d feel safer with Chinese electronics in all honesty.
Here’s some alternatives I’ve been using:
-Routers: Mikrotik, Latvian company, mostly made in Eastern Europe
-Cloud Storage: Tresorit, owned by Swiss Post
-VPS: Ovhcloud, French company with its North American Datacenter in Canada
-Linux: Anything but Fedora which is owned by IBM. Using it contributes to their RnD for their Redhat corporate services and distros.
-DNS: Quad9. Switzerland based non profit. Don’t give Cloudflare your precious traffic data.
-Dropped every single US owned social media and subscription service.
Still working on migrating my email and search off Microsoft and Google. Going to drop Android and Steam at the first viable opportunity.
Credit Cards and Youtube are literally the only two that are unviable to switch from… for now.
I’d feel safer with Chinese electronics in all honesty.
Don’t let recency bias cloud over your judgement.
Its not, China is preferable atm.
How many millions of people will die because those morons in Washington destroyed USAID and disrupted global food and energy supply chains?
Russia is right there with the US doing the same illegal wars of aggression and murdering civilians.
A country with no concern for international law or human rights should not have that kind of supranational power. I’d feel safer with Chinese electronics in all honesty.
This describes both the Americans and the Chinese. But I guess you can pick the lesser threat based on your circumstances. The Chinese have been far more aggressive in my region so if I’m forces to choose, well the choice is clear.
As a rule of thumb, you want to give the least of your personal information to the country that will violate your country’s independence. Its a rational choice.
MS Windows and MS Office is also “made in USA”.
Boycotting things you’ve already purchased like alcohol and software doesn’t do anything
Alcoholics love this one simple trick.
So are iPhones, Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
Canadians only seem willing to boycott farmers not the powerful men that have Trumps ear and put him in power to enact their will.
America has already completed a near 100% digital conquest of Canada with near zero resistance. No wonder they are surprised that there is pushback about “51st state”
Aren’t most farmers voting for team red? It’s easier to change whose produce I buy this weekend than it is to change my phone’s OS.
I have quit reddit, Instagram, Dropbox, and dropped down to a free tier of Google since the boycotts began though. It’s a work in progress to be rid of all commercial us tech.
iPhones are only designed in USA, 0 actual production.
Software (app store), significant portion made in usa.
Also more important: significant portion of the money goes to USA excelutives.
I types this on a google phone, I’m in the same boat.
Edit: oof, English is my first language I swear…
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I’m guessing a large percentage of the upvotes are from Americans.
I thought this was already being done almost from the onset of the current U.S. regime?
People aren’t going back and forth on this decision. It’s definitely something that needs to be done and they need to stick to it. Build up your own infrastructure before it’s too late.
AFAIK they been doing it for a better part of two years ever since Trump proposed the annexation of Canada.
The article is new, the behavior isn’t.
If it’s american I dick it lick it ship it.
That is what I am doing for the past 2 years. Managed to completly remove Apple, all my media content is torrented, free. Just can’t remove Google and Microsoft (at work).
This in is the dictionary under unforced error.
Nobody really cares about 10,000 people boycotting anything… 😆
