A friend of mine sent me an article at The Conversation which argued the best way for the US to win trade concessions is for Donald Trump to call for a boycott of Chinese goods.
When we think of a boycott, we usually imagine consumers avoiding a particular product. Such boycotts have had varying levels of success.
A corporate boycott of a nation is much less common. To the best of my knowledge, a corporate boycott of a nation along the lines suggested here has not been attempted before.
Well, actually it has… in China.
As I wrote a few weeks ago, boycotts – both by consumers and companies – were an important form of resistance and action against the foreign powers in China in the early 20th century. On this date in 1905, the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution which called on both consumers and corporate entities to stop trading in American goods to protest US immigration policies and the poor treatment of ethnic Chinese in the United States.