A post calling for a “boycott” of American products and services sparked debate in the c/canada community on the Canadian discussion board Lemmy. The original poster specifically suggested avoiding U.S.-based services like Amazon and Netflix, but commenters were divided. Some defended Costco, pointing out that it carries many Canadian-made Kirkland-brand products and supports Canadian jobs, while others pushed back with “the profits still end up in America anyway” and “Walmart is actually worse,” and the debate continued over just how far a boycott should extend.
What people said
1Anonymous2026-08-30 12:22
On boycotting America
I know this has probably been said before, but I want to say it again. Sure, boycotting American products you like — Kellogg's, say — is fine, but that kind of thing barely makes a dent. If you actually want to hurt America, you need to go after these on a large scale:
3Anonymous2026-08-30 13:36
Costco, by the way, is one of the few Fortune 500 companies that didn't roll back its DEI policies after Trump won the election.
4Anonymous2026-08-30 14:03
Everyone says "stop using Amazon, cancel Prime," and sure, that helps a little, but these days most of Amazon's profit comes from AWS (their cloud division). Shouldn't we be pressuring companies to move away from that instead?
21Anonymous2026-08-30 19:43
But "cancel Prime and avoid Amazon" is something you can do right now, without having to check whether every site you use runs on AWS.
5Anonymous2026-08-30 15:41
As a middle ground: Costco actually carries quite a few Canadian products. Some Kirkland-brand items are made in Canada too (at least the ones sold here). Toilet paper and shampoo are two Kirkland products made in Canada — I can see both from where I'm sitting right now.
13Anonymous2026-08-30 17:32
I feel like I can guess where you're sitting (lol)
32Anonymous2026-08-30 22:15
Yeah, honestly I'm pretty impressed by how many Canadian-made or non-American alternatives Costco actually stocks.
6Anonymous2026-08-30 13:30
Same goes for rideshare and food delivery. Drop Uber and Lyft and use local taxis instead. In Toronto at least, the Beck Taxi app is solid and the drivers actually know where they're going. Skip the Dishes is Canadian-owned, but the others aren't. Best of all, go out and order straight from your neighborhood restaurant if you can.
8Anonymous2026-08-30 12:34
I get it, people say "it's rough, it's a hassle" — but it's really just different, and honestly it often ends up feeling refreshing. I wanted a new sports watch, and Garmin is basically THE brand for runners, but I went with Polar instead, which is European and falls under GDPR. It didn't take long to get used to, and now I actually like it. I don't feel like going back.
9Anonymous2026-08-30 15:45
Switching where you shop to Canadian stores supports Canadian jobs. But if you're only going to boycott one American chain, make it Walmart — they've been screwing over their employees, their suppliers, and the local economies they move into for decades.
10Anonymous2026-08-30 13:47
If people in Canada boycott Walmart and Costco, a long boycott is just going to put more Canadians out of work in the end. We should be boycotting American products, not Canadian jobs.
20Anonymous2026-08-30 19:45
Sorry, but I can't get behind that logic. People have to shop somewhere regardless, so just shift that business — and those jobs — over to Canadian stores.
31Anonymous2026-08-31 00:46
Fair point, but the fix is just to buy elsewhere so the profits stop flowing to America.
11Anonymous2026-08-30 12:27
That's the spirit! Watch NFB or CBC Gem instead of Netflix!
25Anonymous2026-08-30 19:58
If that's still not enough: 1. Local public broadcasting — BC's Knowledge Network has apps for all kinds of devices. 2. The library — lately I've been borrowing a lot of DVDs from there.
26Anonymous2026-08-31 00:36
I unsubscribed from every American channel on YouTube.
12Anonymous2026-08-30 14:56
If you can install uBlock Origin, you can actually tell whether a given site is running on AWS. (image attached)
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/cb98e886-d871-49c5-9fc4-6de5fe4e6768.png
16Anonymous2026-08-31 00:07
I'm American and I'm already doing that.
19Anonymous2026-08-30 19:27
Everyone loves Costco, so I don't think a boycott is ever going to catch on there — if anything, it might be one of the most beloved companies in all of retail.
22Anonymous2026-08-30 23:40
"You can always find what you need another way" — exactly! 🏴☠️ for Canada. Small story: I was about to buy a kitchen scale at a store yesterday, assumed it was made in China, but something felt off, so I looked up the company — turned out to be American, so I returned it within the hour. Then at Canadian Tire I found a similar one from a PEI company that was cheaper and better (USB-rechargeable instead of running on batteries).
23Anonymous2026-08-30 15:46
Let's boycott everything. Plenty of people inside the U.S. are doing the same thing, but I think the rest just got too used to cheap goods, and their low wages make it hard to break free of that.
33Anonymous2026-08-30 19:24
I wonder how Aldi treats its suppliers — are they treated fairly? I hear Aldi is near the top of the industry for how it treats grocery staff, though to be fair, the bar for that industry is pretty low to begin with.
24Anonymous2026-08-30 21:44
Costco is just okay — nothing to rave about. Most of the food isn't Canadian-made, and ordering through costco.ca gets you UPS instead of a Canadian carrier. It's not like they use eco-friendly packaging either.
28Anonymous2026-08-31 01:31
I've cut everything else, but I'm keeping my Costco membership until the day I die.
29Anonymous2026-08-31 00:39
That's a great first step! Keep it up.
30Anonymous2026-08-31 00:50
Didn't know something like that existed. I bought the GT6 Pro for Gadgetbridge, but this might actually be even better if it's open source.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
This thread emerged against a backdrop of worsening Canadian sentiment toward the U.S., fueled in part by American companies rolling back their DEI policies under the Trump administration. The flashpoint was how to treat Costco: its head office is in the U.S., but some Kirkland-brand products are made in Canada, and the company supports Canadian jobs. That produced a standoff between the defense — “cutting Costco out will just create more unemployment” — and the counterargument that “a store should redirect its profit flow regardless of where it’s based,” with neither side really meeting the other. (This piece leaves out some off-topic, racier tangents from the original thread.) What’s worth taking away is that this is a grassroots, consumer-level exchange about just how far people can realistically go in avoiding American-based services — Amazon, Netflix, rideshare and food delivery apps — not evidence of any organized movement or measurable outcome. It remains simply an exchange of opinions on a single discussion board.
*This article is excerpted from the thread “American Boycotts” on the overseas discussion board Lemmy’s c/canada community, translated and adapted into Japanese by our editorial team. Our site takes full responsibility for the translation.
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