In India, Trump tariffs spark calls for boycott
Pushback comes after growing wealth cerated market for U.S. brands
By: Adlitya Kalra
Reuters
NEW DELHI - Form McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, U. S.-based multinationals are facing calls for a boycott in India as business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's supporters stoke anti-American sentiment to protest against U.S. tariffs.
.....
India, the world's most populous nation, is a key market for American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as symbols of moving up in life.
..... India, for example, is the biggest market for users for Meta's WhatsApp, and Domino's has more restaurants than any other brand in the country, Beverages like Pepsi and Coco-Cola often dominate store shelves, and people still line up when a new Apple store opens or a Starbucks cafe doles out discounts.
..... Although there was no immediate indication of sales being hit, there's a growing chorus both on social media and offline to buy local and ditch American products after President Donald Trump imposed a 50% exporters goods from India, rattling exporters and damaging their between New Delhi and Washington.
.....
Manish Chowdhary, co-founder of India;s Wow Skin Science, took to LindedIn with a video message urging support for farmers and startups to make "Made in India" a "global obsession," and to learn form South Korea, whose food and beauty products are famous worldwide.
.....
"We have lined up for products from thousands of miles away. We have proudly spent on brands that we don't own, while our own makers fight for attention in their own country," he said.
..... Rahm Shastry, CEO of India's DriveU, which provides a car-driver-on-call service, wrote on LinkedIn: "India should have its one home-grown Twitter/Google/YouTube?WhatsAPP/FB - like China has."
.....
To be fair, Indian retail companies give foreign brands like Starbucks stiff competition in the domestic market, but going global has been a challenge. Indian IT services firms, however, have become deeply entranced in the global economy, with the likes of TCS and Infosys providing software solutions to client world over.
..... On August 10, [2025] Modi made a "special appeal" for becoming self-reliant, telling a gathering in Bengaluru, that Indian technology compactness made products for the world bu "now is the chem for us to give more priority to India's needs."
..... He did not name any company.
..... Goods trade between the Unities States and India - the world's biggest and fifth-largest economies, respectively - was worth about $87 billion in the last classical year, [2024] according to Indian government estimates.
.....
Even as anti-American protests simmer, Tesla launched its second showroom in India in New Delhi, with the August 11 [2025] opening attended by Indian commerce ministry officials and U.S. Embassy officials.
..... The Swadeshi Jagran Manch group, which is linked to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, set up small pubic rallies across India on August 10, [2025] urging people to boycott American brands.
.....
"People are now looking at Indian products. it will take some time to fructify," Ashwani Mahajan, the group's co-covenor, told Reuters. "This is a call for nationalism, patriotism."
..... He also shared with Reuters a table his group is circulating on WhatApp, listing Indian brands of bath soaps, toothpaste and cold drinks that people could choose over foreign ones.
..... On social media, one of the group's campaigns is a graphic title "boycott foreign food chains, with logs of McDonald's and other restaurant brands,.
..... In Utar Pradesh, Rajat Gupta, 37, who was dining at a McDonald;s in Lucknow on August 11, [2025] said he wasn't concerned about the tariff protests and simply enjoyed the 49-rupee (55-cent) coffee he considered good value for money.
..... "Tariffs are a matter of diplomacy, and my McPuff, coffee should not be dragged into it," he said.
..... A McPuff is a McDonald's menu item offered in India.