USA President Donald Trump’s introduction of “Liberation Day” tariffs on UK products has inadvertently boosted pride in British goods across the country, according to the UK’s national domain name registry.
Nominet, which has run the .UK web registry since 1996, has observed a surge of interest in British goods following recent changes in America’s foreign trade policy.
A recent survey of 2,000 British adults was conducted by the platform that manages ten million domain names, finding that just under half of those questioned (49%) said that the introduction of tariffs by the United States of America on goods from the United Kingdom would make them more likely to buy British in the future.
It was also revealed that only 14% wouldn’t be more likely to buy British, while 37% remained undecided about their future decisions.
Pride in British goods was significantly higher among those aged 55 and over. Those in the North East and West Midland regions were most likely to change their buying habits because of the tariffs.
64% of those surveyed agreed that they felt a growing sense of pride in buying British goods following the tariff announcement, with only 13% saying that they felt no change in how they felt and 23% remained undecided on how they felt about buying British
Elsewhere in the survey, 54% agreed that a UK web address, those ending in co.uk or .uk, had an influence on where they purchased from online. Once again, this choice was significantly higher in those aged 55 and above. People in the South East of England and Scotland were most likely to buy from a UK domain name.
David Carroll, Chief Customer Officer at Nominet, said: “We’ve seen a Trump bump of our own in terms of online searches for UK domain names over the last week or so. With pride returning to buying British – it looks like a growing number of businesses and individuals are looking at registering a UK web address to join the 10m already registered.
“Choosing a .UK domain name has always been a conscious decision for many online businesses, but with a growing sense of pride in buying British – now may be the time for many UK businesses to tap into this feeling.”
Searches on Google show that interest in UK web addresses grew significantly from the announcement of President Trump’s Liberation Day. The last week has seen the highest level of searches for ‘co.uk’ since February 2024.
