Stop Trump - Boycott the Coca-Cola Company

Pseudo-dictator Donald Trump has ignited a global trade war and market chaos after slapping huge tariffs on scores of countries and industries. During his first term, Trump installed a button in the Oval Office of the White House to signal he wanted a Diet Coke. He consumed around 12 per day. Ahead of his take-over as first dictator of the United States, Trump received a commemorative Diet Coke bottle from the Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Company, James Quincey. The same guy said in response to Trump's tariffs on aluminum and its impact on soda can, that Coca-Cola will likely turn toward more plastic packaging to lower its tariff costs.

The Coca-Cola Company is a US-American multinational corporation that sells and markets Coca-Cola and other soft drinks like Fanta, Sprite and Powerade. The company is run as a global system, in which the Coca-Cola Company only produces syrup concentrate, that is then sold to local bottlers throughout the world who hold a national Coca-Cola franchise. For example, the Carlsberg brewery is the local bottler of Coca-Cola in Denmark. Denmark was one of the first countries where consumers spontaneously started to boycott Coca-Cola. Horror clown Trump has sparked anger in Denmark after making repeated threats to seize control of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, either by buying the island or through military force. Although the Danish boycott of Coca-Cola hurts Danish brewery workers in first place, it is indeed effective in hitting the revenues of the Coca-Cola Company, which reportedly see a decline. Coca-Cola is the right target of this global boycott because it is a symbol of Trump's erratic misuse of power and the boycott strikes one of the big supporters of Trump.

Number one reason to boycott Coca-Cola is your health. Health experts link sugary beverages like Coca-Cola directly to type 2 diabetes, a condition that affects an estimated 462 million people around the world. Sugary drinks alter the body's metabolism, affecting insulin, cholesterol and metabolites that cause high blood pressure. Studies have linked the consumption of Diet Coke with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Full-sugar Coca-Cola has 53 grams of sugar per 500 milliliter, almost double the recommended daily sugar intake for an adult. Powerade Original, another of Coca-Cola Company's drinks, contains 5.8 grams of sugar per 600-milliliter bottle, almost 20 percent of the recommended daily intake. Powerade is the official drink of the US Olympic team. Coca-Cola is financing scientists who help them deny the role sugary drinks play in causing obesity. The Coca-Cola Company funded the global industry lobby group International Life Sciences Institute for decades to produce research and to stall progress on vital nutrition and public health policy in India, Mexico, China, and Brazil. Coca-Cola wants to make you believe that physical exercise is more important for combating obesity than diet. This is nonsense. Research definitely shows exercise is largely ineffective for producing any significant amount of weight loss on its own: you have to cut calories as well.

Reason number two is plastic pollution. The Coca-Cola Company is known as the worst plastic polluter in the world, pumping out 200,000 plastic bottles a minute. Coca-Cola creates the biggest plastic pollution footprint in six developing countries (China, India, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria): about 8 billion bottles which are burned or dumped each year. In 2019, the company's global chief executive said that "Coca-Cola has no plans to reduce its use of plastic bottles." In 2022, the company made a promise to have 25% of its drinks sold in refillable or returnable glass or plastic bottles, or in refillable containers that could be filled up at fountains or "Coca-Cola freestyle dispensers". In 2023, Coca-Cola's packaging composition included 47.7% plastic, 26% aluminum, and 10.4% glass. The Coca-Cola Company has done little to increase the reuse of packaging, with only 1.2% of its packaging being reusable. Additionally, Coca-Cola has increased its use of virgin plastics by approximately 6% since 2019. In 2024, they quietly abandoned a pledge to achieve a 25% reusable packaging target by 2030. Environmental campaigners call this move a masterclass in greenwashing.

Reason number three is drinking water. The Coca-Cola Company has identified India as a major market where it seeks to derive significant future profits, particularly since Coca-Cola products are being shunned by consumers in the US and other industrialized countries where Coca-Cola sales and profits are on the decline or stagnant due to major health concerns. Communities across India living around Coca-Cola's bottling plants are experiencing severe water shortages, directly as a result of Coca-Cola's massive extraction of water from the common groundwater resource. Coca-Cola has also discharged its waste water into the fields and rivers around its bottling plants, causing pollution of the groundwater and the soil. A number of Coca-Cola bottling plants, including in Plachimada (Kerala), Kala Dera (Rajasthan), and Mehdiganj (Uttar Pradesh) have been shut down as a result of community-led protests. A success of a sustained campaign against the company's plans to expand bottling plants despite severe water scarcity. In Mexico, where the water provisions and sanitation is in a bad condition, the impact of Coca-Cola bottling plants is devastating. In 2017, the Coca-Cola Company was under fire for sucking dry a well in the indigenous town of San Felipe Ecatepec in the state of Chiapas, southern Mexico. A nearby bottling plant, run by Mexican company FEMSA, a Coca-Cola franchise, consumed 1.08 million litres of water every single day. People had to walk two hours a day to get water or buy their water.

Our worldwide boycott of Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Amazon to stop Donald Trump continues until he leaves the White House. Drop Coca-Cola for healthier drinks, visit McDonald's and Starbucks without ordering something and support your local dealers instead of online shopping at Amazon. Of course our ultimate boycott of International Food Companies continues. Check the Buycott app and avoid their food products. There are plenty of healthier choices for your meals.