{"id":877094,"date":"2025-10-12T00:22:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T05:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/toothpaste-mcdonalds-and-pepsi-in-the-crosshairs-as-us-india-tariff-tensions-heat-up\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T00:22:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T05:22:49","slug":"toothpaste-mcdonalds-and-pepsi-in-the-crosshairs-as-us-india-tariff-tensions-heat-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/12\/toothpaste-mcdonalds-and-pepsi-in-the-crosshairs-as-us-india-tariff-tensions-heat-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Toothpaste, McDonald\u2019s and Pepsi in the crosshairs as US-India tariff tensions heat up"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A person holds The Times of India newspaper in New Delhi, India, on Friday.
\nAnushree Fadnavis\/Reuters<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Reuters<\/span> \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 <\/cite><\/p>\n

Dabur, Indian rival of Colgate-Palmolive, is making its toothpaste a test of nationalism by asking consumers to shun American brands, as companies intensify promotion of local goods amid worsening trade ties with the United States.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reiterated his call to use \u201cSwadeshi,\u201d or made-in-India goods.<\/p>\n

Children should \u201cmake a list\u201d of foreign-branded goods, Modi said, while teachers should push them to not use them.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump last week imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent<\/a> on imported Indian goods, prompting Modi\u2019s supporters to start a WhatsApp campaign to boycott American brands including McDonald\u2019s, Pepsi and Apple.<\/p>\n

Consumer goods company Dabur, valued at $11 billion, took out a front-page newspaper advertisement this week carrying photos of unbranded toothpaste packs that resemble Colgate packaging.<\/p>\n

Without naming its rival, the ad said India\u2019s favorite toothpaste brand was American, and Dabur was the \u201cSwadeshi\u201d choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cBorn there, not here\u201d, it said, referring to the unnamed toothpaste, in a font styled with the red, white and blue of the American flag.<\/p>\n

Dabur declined to comment on the advertisement, and Colgate did not respond to queries from Reuters.<\/p>\n

Colgate has a 43 percent share of India\u2019s toothpaste market, followed by the Indian unit of Unilever, home to the Pepsodent brand in the country.<\/p>\n

Dabur is in third place with a 17 percent share, according to Euromonitor data for 2024.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s population of 1.4 billion is a major market<\/a> for American consumer goods, often purchased from US online retailer Amazon, and over the years the reach of US brands has expanded deep into smaller towns.<\/p>\n

The Dabur ad in the Times of India newspaper even carried a QR code that took consumers to a shopping link on the Amazon India website, which captures about a third of domestic online sales.<\/p>\n

Karthik Srinivasan, a communications consultant, called the advertising strategies of Dabur and others \u201cmoment marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we gain from that sentiment at least for this week and next? That\u2019s literally what all these brands are doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Others using a similar tactic included Amul, India\u2019s largest dairy, which has published cartoons featuring \u201cMade in India\u201d products on its social media accounts, with one animated ad showing its mascot holding an Indian flag and a slab of butter.<\/p>\n

Indian email provider Rediff, popular years ago before the rise of Yahoo and Google Mail, also took out a newspaper ad calling its service the \u201cmail of India\u201d that helps to keep customers\u2019 business intelligence local.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A person holds The Times of India newspaper in New Delhi, India, on Friday. Anushree Fadnavis\/Reuters Reuters \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Dabur, Indian rival of Colgate-Palmolive, is making its toothpaste a test of nationalism by asking consumers to shun American brands, as companies intensify promotion of local goods amid worsening trade ties with the United States. Prime Minister<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":877095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008,31774],"tags":[7030,118720],"class_list":{"0":"post-877094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mcdonalds","8":"category-toothpaste","9":"tag-mcdonalds","10":"tag-toothpaste"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}