As many of you have heard, President Donald Trump made executive orders to ban immigrants from seven fairly Muslim countries. The seven countries include; Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
In a message left on Starbuck’s website to the employees, Howard Schultz said, “There are more than 65 million citizens of the world recognized as refugees by the United Nations, and we are developing plans to hire 10,000 of them over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business.”
Schultz is against President Trump and wants Starbucks to support refugees by re-instructing trade with Mexico. This would entail health care insurance to eligible workers and a work permit for those who were brought into the country as children.This did not go over well with Trump supporters, as they started a hashtag trend after Schultz made this announcement, #boycottstarbucks. This was an interesting take on both President Trump and Schultz parts. If you think about it, the CEO of Starbucks is putting his business on the line. He is fighting back on Trump’s demand to ban immigrants by saying, “No, we’re going to hire the immigrants!”
Trump holds a high position, he is President of the United States. Schultz is bold to push back on President Donald Trump’s executive order. There are things that have to be taken into account on both ends. On one hand,President Donald Trump has made the decision to ban immigrants from seven different countries. On the other hand, Schultz has to take into account the financial stability of his company. The general public takes things of this nature personal and this could result in a decline in business. Trump supporters have already created a hashtag, the next thing they could do is refrain from going to Starbucks, all because they disagree with Schultz. Decline in business because of beliefs has happened in many different companies, such as; Chick-fil-A, hobby lobby etc.
Starbuck’s CEO has not been the only CEO to speak out however, other companies such as; Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and even Netflix do not agree with Donald Trump either.
The question that comes to mind is, will President Trump’s ban stay for long with as many people who believe it is wrong? Will Starbucks have a decline in business? Will Schultz continue to push back on President Trump’s orders? That is just something that we will have to keep track of.
By Goldene Brown, Junior Account Executive, Strickler Planetarium
