Trump urges Goodyear boycott over co’s political attire policy
Goodyear policy deems political attire in workplace ‘unacceptable’ but does not specifically target MAGA wear.
United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for a boycott of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co in response to a company policy that has deemed political attire, including that of the Trump campaign, unacceptable for the workplace.
“Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES – They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS,” the Republican president, seeking re-election on November 3, wrote on Twitter.
MAGA refers to Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” that often features on baseball caps worn by his supporters.
Shares in Goodyear, the largest tire company in North America, fell 4.2 percent following Trump’s Twitter post.
“To be clear on our longstanding corporate policy, Goodyear has zero tolerance for any form of harassment or discrimination,” a statement posted on the company’s official Twitter account said.
To enforce that policy, Goodyear said, it asks employees to refrain from “workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equality issues”.
Last year, Goodyear had nearly $15bn in revenue, the bulk coming from sales of tyres, according to regulatory filings. Its branded tyres were on 24 percent of new vehicles in the US in 2018, according to Tire Business, an industry publication.
US Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown criticised Trump’s comment.
“It’s absolutely despicable that the President would call for a boycott of an American company, based in Akron, that employs thousands of U.S. workers,” he wrote in a tweet.
Brown represents Ohio, where Akron is located.
The White House declined to comment on whether Trump was calling for Americans to stop buying new vehicles with Goodyear tyres.
The tweet followed a news report by WIBW, a CBS affiliate television station in Kansas. The report featured a Goodyear training session at the company’s corporate headquarters that discussed political attire.
Trump, trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden in opinion polls, is gearing up to accept the Republican party’s presidential nomination at the White House next week.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that she had not seen the tweet, but did not view it as a political mistake.
“I think he’s done plenty for companies in Ohio and elsewhere, far more than Joe Biden ever did,” she said.
Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said Trump “spends a tremendous amount of his time in the White House focused on how things reflect on him personally when he should be thinking about how they impact American families”.
Boycotts, like tariffs, are a favourite in Trump’s political and economic toolkit.
In early 2016, before winning the last election, Trump called for boycotts of Apple products until the tech giant agreed to US government demands that it unlock the cellphone of one of the killers in an attack in San Bernardino, California.