The Canterbury publican boycotting US liquor after Trump's tariffs

A boycott of American booze is underway in Canterbury's Governor Bay where the publican of over 20 years is showing his opposition to the Trump's regime's tariffs.

Otoromiro Hotel owner Jeremy Dyer is selling the liquor until the bottles are empty and won't be ordering more.

“The Jack Daniels is going, the Jim Beam is going, and most certainly the Southern Comfort is nearly gone," he said.

“Supposedly a close ally of us has sort of shafted us. Even though it’s a small measure to ban bourbon from our beverage offerings, I hope the message comes back and bites the administration on the a***."

Emptying out the top shelf has even been good for business, he said.

"We had a couple of Canadians staying with us last week and they were in for one night, when they saw our boycott, they decided to stay for four nights so that was a bonus."

Canadians started the trend of shunning American goods in favour of their own.

The local protest has found some support in the streets of Lyttelton.

One member of the community told 1News Lyttelton was a "very political town".

"Many locals agree with the decision of Jeremy to pull the American liquor from his shelves, and I personally do agree."

Another said: "I think Trump’s a bully and people should stand up to him in any way they can."

Hospitality NZ chief executive Steve Armitage said it was not uncommon for hospitality operators to make decisions around country of origin.

"At this stage we're not picking up any significant trend that hospitality operators are avoiding US products, but we obviously are very aware that the geo-political environment and the tariff situation is creating some interesting interplay at the moment."

However, he said it was possible it could gain a bit of momentum "similar to what we saw around the Ukraine conflict when Russian product was no longer very popular around suppliers here".

"It's too early to say but the dynamic changes day to day, so this is one trend I think we'll have to monitor for now."

Another local was not quite as convinced by Dyer's boycott.

"Each individual can do what they like, but personally I wouldn't go to that extreme."

Dyer said he was a "pretty woke publican".

"I don't expect everyone will sort of pick up on it, but just sending a message with our little boycott and hopefully others can think about what they buy off America too."