Patagonia Blasts Trump’s National Monument Orders, Tells Customers ‘the President Stole Your Land’

Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario receives applause after being acknowledge by US President Bara
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

The outdoor clothing giant Patagonia blasted President Trump’s executive orders that would reduce the size of two Utah national monuments Tuesday, in their latest move to push its progressive activism on its customers.

“The President Stole Your Land,” reads the message the clothing retailer posted on its website and Instagram page.

Patagonia posted a small message underneath the message on its website, calling Trump’s executive orders shrinking Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments “an illegal move.”

“In an illegal move, the president just reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments,” the retailer wrote. “This is the largest elimination of protected land in American history.”

Trump, after he signed the executive orders Monday, said in a speech that he used his powers under the Antiquities Act to give oversight of the land back to the people of Utah, in a move that supporters say is a victory for states’ rights.

But Patagonia is not buying into Trump’s push for states’ rights.

Rose Marcario, Patagonia’s CEO, said that the retailer plans to sue the Trump administration for downsizing the amount of federally-protected land in Utah.

“We’ve fought to protect these places since we were founded and now we’ll continue that fight in the courts,” Marcario told Fox News.

Patagonia says it plans to support the Native American and environmental groups also planning to challenge the Trump administration in court.

The clothing company is not shy about supporting federal government control of U.S. land. In January, it supported former President Barack Obama’s decision to designate 1.35 million acres of Utah state land as a “national monument” to ensure the federal government had control over the land.

State officials and the majority of Utah residents opposed Obama’s land grab—a 2016 poll found that 60 percent of Utah residents opposed Obama’s push to designate Utah land as property of the federal government.

Despite the sentiment from residents and efforts by state officials to reverse Obama’s order, Patagonia worked to ensure that the federal government could keep control of the land.

The company threatened to withdraw from Salt Lake City’s biannual Outdoor Retailer Show, a trade show that brings in 45,000 visitors and $40 million in revenue to the state to stick it to Utah state officials.

The California-based company has a long history of progressive activism.

Patagonia spent $1 million on a get-out-the-vote campaign during the 2016 election, vowed to lead “the resistance” against Trump after he was elected president, and donated more than $60,000 of company profits to Planned Parenthood.

But the outdoor clothing retailer also has a sordid history—internal company audits found instances of human trafficking in its supply chain.

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