FOREIGN BOYCOTTS OVER IRAQ WAR A FACTOR IN U.S. ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2008-01-22 15:46. Media
By Sherwood Ross
One of the many contributing factors driving the U.S. economy’s sharp downturn is the anger of foreign consumers boycotting American brands over the Iraq war.
It’s not just many of the 1.5 billion Muslim consumers, either, that have quit buying Made in America. It’s people from France to Brazil to Canada to India, and it is a trend that began even before Bush invaded Iraq—remember those angry millions the world over that took to the streets urging him not to start it?
When foreigners, who once valued American craftsmanship, stop buying U.S. products, it’s got to worsen the balance of trade. And that can translate into layoffs, into closed factories, into reduced consumer spending. The Census Bureau is reporting the trade deficit in goods and services was a whopping $63 billion in October--- and that’s a factor in the current meltdown.
Last July Reuters reported foreigners still have “a ferocious appetite for American goods and services” and noted U.S. multinationals were posting record earnings. Those profits might have been better, though, if not for the anti-war mood.
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute noted as early as Oct., 2004, that Pew Global Attitude Project polls showed “the war in Iraq has undermined America’s credibility abroad” and “Anti-American sentiment is spreading around the world.”
A Pew follow-up poll last June, “documented wide anti-American sentiment since the survey was launched in 2002 and found those attitudes deepening this year,” Reuters reported. “The United States’ favorable ratings declined in 26 of 33 countries for which a comparison was available, with negative views particularly strong in the Middle East.” Reuters quoted Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at Bank of America Corp. saying: “Anti-Americanism has rarely been as prevalent and widespread as in the past five years. These circumstances have led many, ourselves included, to worry about a possible boycott or backlash against U.S. goods and services.”
That “possible boycott” actually got underway even before the first U.S. bomb fell on Iraq on March 18, 2003. As BBC reported from Thiruvananthapuram, India, earlier that month, social activists planned to boycott in “a last bid to prevent the unjust aggression on millions of innocent people.” And in Brazil, federal deputy Chico Alencar said if the U.S. made a unilateral attack on Iraq “we will boycott.”
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http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30324
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