Bread buns on sale in the upmarket Danish grocery store Føtex. The retailer has introduced a new way for shoppers to avoid buying US products: small black stars that indicate goods made in Europe. (Photo by Francis Dean/Corbis via Getty Images)
Between the peaceful Copenhagen waterfront and the city’s traffic-clogged 02 ring road, the Fisketorvet shopping mall has become a battleground in the global trade wars. On the mall’s first floor, Kirsten Mogensen is holding a pack of rice noodles and pondering how her shopping habits can fight back against the US under President Donald Trump.
As in any European supermarket, products here are sourced from around the world. But last month, this branch of the upmarket grocery store Føtex — along with others owned by Denmark’s Salling Group — introduced a new way for shoppers to avoid buying US products: small black stars that indicate goods made in Europe. In the drinks aisles, the Danish soft drink Faxe Kondi is displayed with a star; nearby Pepsi Max is not. There’s a star for a box of Italian Il Capolavoro wine, but not for Californian pinot noir.
The stars “make it easier to make a choice,” said Mogensen, one of the few shoppers in Føtex on a quiet Tuesday afternoon. The system helps her support European firms and buy products that produce fewer emissions because they haven’t been shipped as far, Mogensen said. “So I use it for environmental reasons and at the moment also to avoid supporting the Americans.”
Salling, a retail group that owns Føtex and other supermarket brands, launched the initiative after receiving messages from customers who wanted to buy more groceries from European brands, Chief Executive Officer Anders Hagh said in a recent post on LinkedIn. The company has since introduced the stars across most of its supermarkets and plans to roll them out across the rest before summer, a spokesperson said.
Across Europe, consumers are reacting to Trump tariffs and to the derogatory comments US officials have made about the bloc. Social media posts show tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese turned upside down in German grocery stores, while “Boycott USA” stickers have appeared in French supermarkets. Meanwhile, Tesla sales have fallen sharply across Europe and Tesla showrooms in the Netherlands and Germany have been vandalized.
As the trade war escalates, the supermarket alcohol aisle has become central to tensions, with the US and EU sparring over tariffs on American whisky, French champagne and other drinks.
“It’s an anxious time,” said Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council, a US trade organisation. The industry on both sides of the Atlantic has thrived over the past three years since tariffs from Trump’s first term were lifted, he said. Between 2021 and 2024, American whiskey exports to the EU, the industry’s largest overseas market, increased 60% to $699 million.
“‘Brand America’ is taking a beating,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at Brussels think tank Bruegel. Kirkegaard is himself among the Europeans turning away from American-made products. Before Elon Musk became a Trump ally, he was thinking about buying a Tesla. But he’s had a rethink since Musk became a key player in the Trump administration and began intervening in European political affairs. “I would not consider buying a Tesla today because of that,” he said.
In a turbulent period for EU-US relations, Denmark has had a particularly rocky ride. Alongside tariffs, the Trump administration has publicly clashed with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen after the US president expressed his interest in taking over Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory. Since February, 90,000 people have joined a Danish Facebook group called ‘Boycott US Goods’, where members share pictures of local shops promoting Danish products. In one, pallets of Jolly Cola soft drinks — a Danish brand — sit for sale beneath a big sign advertising “Danish Soda.”
At Naturfrisk, a Danish organic drinks maker, CEO Tørk Eskild Furhauge said there have been several requests from restaurants looking to change their soda offering to Danish alternatives. “We have been in dialogue with several customers, some of whom directly mention the current political situation as the reason they want to phase out American brands,” Furhauge said in a statement.
Not everyone is avoiding ubiquitous US brands. On Føtex’s shelves sit famous American labels such as Coca-Cola, Oreo and Colgate toothpaste. One shopper in the beer aisle said he hopes EU-US relations will improve soon because he doesn’t want to make a change. Other shoppers, who all declined to share their names, said they planned to wait to see how the trade wars played out before switching away from US products.
Buying local can present a conundrum, given complex global supply chains that obscure the country of origin of some goods, said Ann Lehmann Erichsen, consumer economist at Danish bank Sydbank. The Coca-Cola trademark is American but the Coke sold in bottles in Denmark is manufactured by Carlsberg, a local licensee of the brand. “If you boycott a brand like Coca-Cola, you actually boycott things made in Denmark,” said Lehmann Erichsen.
Salling counts a product as made in Europe, and worthy of a star, if the owner of the trademark is European. In Føtex, some shoppers said the idea behind the stars should be expanded to provide even more information. Organic coffee shop owner Mick Schultz said he was trying to buy Danish goods and avoid US-made products even before the trade wars. Schultz, who was on the hunt for healthy snacks, said he welcomed information that would help him avoid buying products with lots of artificial additives. When it comes to that, he said, “Americans do have a bit of a challenge.”
