US Businesses Overseas Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism

[Raster]

Published on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 by OneWorld.net
by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's foreign policy may be costing U.S. corporations business overseas--according to a new survey of 8,000 international consumers released this week by the Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) Inc.

Unfortunately, current American foreign policy is viewed by international consumers as a significant negative, when it used to be a positive.

<snip>

One third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq, constituted their strongest impression of the United States.

Twenty percent of respondents in Europe and Canada said they consciously avoided buying U.S. products as a protest against those policies. That finding was consistent with a similar poll carried out by GMI three weeks after Bush's November election victory.

<snip>

Whether the U.S. foreign policy under Bush is affecting the sales of U.S. corporations overseas is being hotly debated by advertising and public relations firms, as well as the companies themselves. Last month, Kevin Roberts, chief executive of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, told the Financial Times that he believed consumers in Europe and Asia were becoming increasingly resistant to having "brand America rammed down their throats."

<snip, more>

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1229-09.htm

maybe all these good ol' 'Murcan companies will think twice before they help another theofascist steal another election.

[Downtown Hound]

1. Enjoy your tax cut corporations...

You're going to need it to get through the Bush years.

[Prodemsouth]

2. They have to really have the hurt put to them in order for them to think

twice. Unfortuantely fo all the noise about avoiding Murcan products by our friends overseas in Bush's first term nothing was noticable enough to them to think twice last time.

[NEOBuckeye]

3. Well, DUH!

Did these bastards really think foreigners would continue to drink Coca Cola, eat McDonalds and shop Wal-Mart, knowing that their money spent would go to fuel U.S. fascism? They're already light years ahead of where we should now be on this issue.

[dannynyc]

4. The idiots can't think past today . . .

when they think that tax cuts for the wealthy - and more taxes for the lower income population - won't end up hurting sales. They can't think past right now when they say that foreign opinion doesn't matter - until it hits the bottom line. Hopefully, as major corporations feel the pain of being based in a country that the world hates, they'll wake up and wake up others.

The best option is if the religious reich and the upper class begin to fight each other to get their wishes granted by rethugs in DC. That would be great!

[Stuckinthebush]

5. Uh huh....

I think all of us here at DU can say...

"Told ya so."

[bluestateboomer]

6. Seems like a no brainer.

For the last 20 years or so US corporations have been putting the squeeze on there employees, reducing their numbers, lowering wages challenging unions. Now when the ability of those workers to buy products is reduced they also support a government which causes foreign consumers not to buy US products. They expect to profit in a market where no one wants or can afford to buy from them. They need to hear from the "Donald".....YOU'RE Fired!:mad:

[Demeter]

7. You Get What You Pay For

I'm sure that they are satisfied--this is just a ploy to get more favorable treatment at home.

It's not like they threaten to bring the jobs to the US, you know. They probably want to repatriate the profits tax-free.

[MasonJar]

8. Ahrundhi Roy was expousing this a year ago; she said that it

was a goal of her followers. I was hoping that the pressure would rise by this election, but it will soon come to fruition and then the big bucks will not flow so much in one direction. I am somewhat shocked that the big corps did not want John Kerry who was inevitably going to have a better foreign policy that Stump.

[Raster]

9. American Corporations as a whole tend to be short-sighted. Asking

many American companies to project further than their next 10-Q or 10-K is like pulling teeth. Soapbox time: I work in the financial industry and over and over I see companies that are obsessed with making sure their fiscal year end numbers are good for the shareholders, instead of planning for 5 years out.

What many of the coporations that supported $hrubco don't realize is that the rest of the world, including the world business community have VERY LONG MEMORIES. We in the USA tend to forget that our history as a nation only goes for 240-ish years, which is NOTHING to many of the other countries of the world. They've seen empires come and go. Our current approach with the rest of the world now consists of "baddest bully on the block" and "our might makes us right." Not a good idea when the rest of the world holds your debt paper and is tired of subsidizing the American lifestyle. We waste, we consume, we intimidate. And now we don't honor our promises. We currently are not a very good world neighbor. People and countries may forgive, but they never forget.

[Vitruvius]

10. Fascists aren't popular. Who'd be eager to buy from Hitler's Germany -or

from Bu$h's America?

And at home, we could boycott companies that support Bu$h. Does anybody know if there is such a boycott -- is there a list of companies that support Bu$h?

The world is onto something -- and we can do the same.


P.S: Hitler invaded several countries to steal their oil (e.g Romania and its neighbors); it was also a major reason behind his invasion of Russia; in fact, Hitler would have taken Moscow (and won the war) in the initial invasion if he hadn't diverted an army to sieze the Russian oil fields in the south... His greed was his downfall.

[indepat]

11. Is it not fortunate rather than unfortunate that American foreign policy

is viewed as a significant negative by most of those elsewhere, to wit: is it not fortunate that most of the rest of the world has not gone mad?