Goya faces boycott over CEO’s praise of Trump

The CEO of food company Goya is facing an uproar over his praise for President Donald Trump, with some Latino families purging their pantries of the products and scrambling to find alternatives to the beloved beans, seasoning and other products that have long been fixtures in their cooking.

But the controversy is also drawing attention to the mixed political sentiments of Latinos in the U.S. Many of them oppose Trump because of his derogatory comments about Hispanics and harsh policies toward immigration, most notably the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

At the same time, the president has support among some people of Cuban and Venezuelan descent because of his tough stance against the authoritarian leaders of those countries. He has been courting Latino voters who could swing the vote in states such as Arizona and Florida. On Wednesday, he welcomed Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the White House.

Standing beside Trump on Thursday, Goya CEO Robert Unanue declared: “We are truly blessed, at the same time, to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder.”

Almost immediately, #BoycottGoya, #GoyaFoods and #Goyaway began trending on social media platforms. Former Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “Hamilton” writer LinManuel Miranda joined the boycott calls. The United Farm Workers posted a video on Twitter contrasting Trump’s words deriding some Latinos as criminals and rapists against images of them working hard in the fields.

Lorgia Ortega, a retired payroll manager in Los Angeles who regularly puts about 10 Goya products in her shopping cart, said she called her four sisters when she saw Unanue’s comments on Twitter. “Does he realize who the people are that are buying his products?” said Ortega, who immigrated from El Salvador in 1974. “This president has insulted us so much.”

Unanue stood by his words during a Friday appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

The grandson of the company’s founder, Unanue has been a longtime donor to Republican political causes.