The Art Of Dealing a death blow to a $2.3T industry
Americans may not give a damn about foreigners, but they’ll damn sure take their money. And do each year:
Travel and tourism is the largest single services export for the United States, accounting for 22 percent of the country’s services exports and 7 percent of all exports in 2023. The travel and tourism industry contributed $2.3 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022 (2.97 percent of the country’s GDP), supporting 9.5 million jobs.
And the industry supports many more indirect jobs, as it does in my tourist town. Western North Carolina tourism got hit by Hurricane Helene and then by Donald Trump.
Before Donald Trump took office again in January, the U.S. Travel Association reported that according to the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), “there were 66.5 million international visits the U.S. in 2023, reflecting 31% annual growth, but still at just 84% of pre-pandemic inbound visitation levels.” International travel to the U.S. was booming:
International visitors are vital to the U.S. economy. Visitors from many countries spend an average of over $4,000 per visit, and collectively contribute $155 billion in U.S. travel spending every year. International visits also help balance the U.S. trade deficit, as travel spending is one of the biggest export services for the United States.
And after a few weeks of Trump’s trade wars and harrowing stories of foreigners being detained and abused at U.S. airports and other points of entry? Well, Charlie Pierce reports at Esquire that Trump 2.0 has “done everything except hang a sign at every port of entry reading, CLOSED: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.”
The Washington Post reported over the weekend:
Canadians are skipping trips to Disney World and music festivals. Europeans are eschewing U.S. national parks, and Chinese travelers are vacationing in Australia instead. International travel to the United States is expected to slide by 5 percent this year, contributing to a $64 billion shortfall for the travel industry, according to Tourism Economics. The research firm had originally forecast a 9 percent increase in foreign travel, but revised its estimate late last month to reflect “polarizing Trump Administration policies and rhetoric.”
All the 51st state talk from Trump is souring Canadians on visiting their southern cousins. A friend reports that Trump’s crackdown on foreigners who set foot inside our borders has scuttled plans for a Canadian friend’s 10th wedding anniversary party in Las Vegas. Months of planning, dozens of guests, a hotel block and entertainment reserved, etc. Canadian guests are bailing out. Tempers are flaring.
With insane stories like this from Jasmine Mooney back in Vancouver, a Canadian just trying to renew her U.S. work visa in San Diego, who wants to come here now?
There was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the US. The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an Ice detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer.
Mooney had no idea why this was happening, and it just got worse. They gave her a space blanket and plunked her down in a frigid holding cell with no phone call for three days. Then they sent her to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, gave her a prison uniform and fingerprinted her.
“How long will I be here?”
“I don’t know your case,” the man said. “Could be days. Could be weeks. But I’m telling you right now – you need to mentally prepare yourself for months.”
Months.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
Then they sent Mooney in a prison bus to the San Luis Regional Detention Center in Arizona. It made the last jail feel like the Four Seasons. It took Mooney two weeks to get released. She felt lucky. Many of the women she met with fewer resources had been there longer.
If the system seemed rigged against that happening, Mooney thinks it is: “These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.”
And the prison business is booming. On Monday, DHS detained Badar Khan Suri at his home in Arlington, Virginia. Suri is an Indian “teaching at Georgetown University on a student visa,” NBC News reports. DHS and the State Department did not comment on his detention or why his visa had been revoked:
Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on X in response to the Politico story that Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.”
So they say. Suri has been sent to the Alexandria Staging Facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, the same as Mahmoud Khalil.
NBC News reports, “Last week, ICE arrested Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who took part in protests at Columbia and who overstayed her student visa, officials said.” Zero tolerance. Overstay your visa by one day and it’s the gulag.
According to a report from Tourism Economics, “Canada accounts for the sharpest projected decline in travelers to the U.S., with the firm forecasting a 15% drop in the number of visits from the U.S.’ northern neighbor in 2025.” But that’s not all (CBS News):
Overall, international travel from all foreign countries to the U.S. is expected to drop by just over 5%, according to the report. Factoring in diminished spending by Americans traveling domestically this year, overall travel spending in the U.S. could drop up to $64 billion in 2025, according to Tourism Economics, a unit of investment advisory firm Oxford Economics.
“The negative effects of an expanded trade war scenario will reach U.S. hotel room demand in 2025,” Tourism Economics said in the report. “Domestic travel will be negatively affected by slower income growth and higher prices while international travel to the U.S. will be hit by a trifecta of slower economies, a stronger dollar and antipathy towards the U.S.”
Charlie Pierce adds:
People don’t want to come here any more. Come April, here in Boston, the administration may have a worse effect on international participation in the Boston Marathon than the pandemic did. In three years, Los Angeles is due to host the Olympics and the Paralympics, and it’s hard to imagine we’ll have regained the trust of the world by then.
And then there are all the other reasons people have to come to this country that, in its previous generosity, it shared with the world. No more Japanese people on the Freedom Trail up here. No more Brits visiting Independence Hall in Philadelphia to show they don’t hold any grudges. No more Brazilians, or Costa Ricans, or, God help us, Venezuelans staring awestruck into the Grand Canyon. And, what the hell, the government doesn’t care about national parks anymore anyway.
How about a nice, relaxing vacation in a U.S. private prison instead?
Donald Trump is a business genius, dontcha know.
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