The writer is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and advises M&C Saatchi World Services
During the cold war, when the world last squared off in existential geopolitical confrontation, the US had an exhilaratingly cool reputation. Behind the Iron Curtain, ordinary citizens were desperate for a can of Coke or a pair of Levi’s. Now, as the world descends into another geopolitical battle, American brands are discovering the price of being unpopular.
Importing US goods was once considered politically necessary. In 1978, the East Germany leader Erich Honecker placed an order for one million pairs of Levi’s. The stern communist had accepted the inevitable: that his country’s citizens would do anything to get their hands on a pair of the jeans. Across the world, US brands represented freedom and trendiness. When McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in the Soviet Union in 1990, tens of thousands of people joined the queue in icy weather.