{"id":389733,"date":"2025-09-01T17:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/389733\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T17:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:12:14","slug":"levis-says-anti-americanism-on-back-of-trump-policies-could-hit-brand-in-uk-retail-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/389733\/","title":{"rendered":"Levi\u2019s says anti-Americanism on back of Trump policies could hit brand in UK | Retail industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Levi\u2019s has warned that \u201crising anti-Americanism as a consequence of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/trump-tariffs\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Trump tariffs<\/a> and governmental policies\u201d could drive British shoppers away from its denim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The company, which distributes Levi\u2019s and Dockers clothing brands, issued the warning in its UK accounts, where it reported sales had risen 8.8% to \u00a396.8m and pre-tax profits were up 23% to \u00a39.6m. It said the Levi\u2019s brand had \u201cretained its attractiveness despite a tense consumer climate and declining customer frequency in the retail sector\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">However, the accounts recently filed at Companies House listed one of its key risks and uncertainties was potentially changing sentiment towards US brands that could lead shoppers to develop \u201cincreasing willingness\u201d to choose more \u201cnational or European\u201d products.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The risk was listed alongside other issues including competition from retailer\u2019s own-label products and pressure on its department store stockists from \u201cincreased online competition and inflexible rents\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It said apparel brands were also competing with \u201cmore basic needs\u201d and there was a risk that high inflation \u201chas a direct impact on the willingness and ability of consumer to spend their reduced available money in apparel and fashion products\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Levi\u2019s UK arm, which employs just over 1,600 people in the UK according to the accounts, is one of the first US brands to openly raise fears about the impact of the Trump administration on sales, in comments first reported by the Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">One brand that has clearly suffered in the UK is Tesla, which is led by Donald Trump\u2019s former right-hand man Elon Musk. Tesla sales in the UK <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/aug\/10\/elon-musk-tesla-applies-to-supply-electricity-to-households-in-great-britain\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more than halved in July<\/a>, according to data from the main industry body. The electric vehicle brand\u2019s UK market share shrank to 0.7% in July, from 1.67% a year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In Canada, protests against US-derived goods has been blamed for a slump in sales of Jack Daniel\u2019s whiskey, which many retailers have removed from their shelves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">There have been reports of <a href=\"https:\/\/nowtoronto.com\/news\/canadians-are-starting-this-new-trend-to-protest-u-s-products-at-grocery-stores\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canadian shoppers<\/a> turning US-made or owned products upside down in stores so they can be identified and avoided by fellow shoppers. The <a href=\"https:\/\/maplescan.ca\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maple Scan<\/a> app also helps Canadians check barcodes to see if grocery purchases have parent companies in the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Trump has sent shock waves through global trade with his \u201cliberation day\u201d tariffs that set a 10% baseline on virtually all of the US\u2019s trading partners, and were topped up with \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs on countries he has argued have unfairly treated the US.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-10\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-rsfwa\">Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">Get set for the working day \u2013 we&#8217;ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n<p><strong>Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-10\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A federal appeals court in Washington DC<strong> <\/strong>ruled on Friday that most of the tariff policies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/aug\/29\/trump-tariffs-illegal-appeal-court-ruling\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">were illegal <\/a>in a ruling that will not take effect until 14 October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The judgment is likely to lead to a supreme court decision on whether Trump has the legal right as president to decide US trade policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Levi\u2019s has warned that \u201crising anti-Americanism as a consequence of the Trump tariffs and governmental policies\u201d could drive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-389733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115130161250390246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}