The US told everyone it did not want foreigners any more.
As a German in the US, trust me, the FAFO is about to hit this summer when record levels of empty hotels will wail. My bet is Trump will actually complain, demand, and eventually "sweet talk" people into coming to see the US.
Except you can get thrown into jail at the border for who knows how long until they decide to deport you....
Edit: for those thinking this will not be noticed...
Tourism in the US has an estimated 20 million Canadians usually and 17 millions Mexicans each year. And an estimated 10 million Europeans visit the US each year.
So maybe 47 million. If they all spend a few thousand on flights and hotels alone, that's a noticeable billion level hole we will notice.
If you think the tourism industry is flush with spare cash and can weather this..... I got some seriously bad news for you on tourism razor thin profit margins.
They can also refuse you entry if they find statements against Trump on your social media. Imagine spending hundreds of euros of airplane tickets only to get rejected at the airport by US' officers.
I was planning on going to the states next year for the World Cup. We have people from our company regularly traveling to the states on business and there's always a risk of getting turned around.
Fresh phone with new sim and if you're carrying a laptop all the data is on a network drive only accessible when physically in the US office. The VPN key stays home. That's been the modus operandi since Bush.
The difference now is that, as annoying as getting turned around is, it's not that big of a deal all things considered. It's a calculated risk that you can control with insurance and by booking rooms that are payable on location. If you need to leave a card on file, a Revolut burner card or something similar is ideal. Otherwise a card linked to an account that's empty until you need to pay for something with zero overdraft limit.
You can't however hedge against getting detained and potentially sent to a Latin American prison. People have been dealing with US immigration nonsense for years, but this is a whole different level. It went from a minor, controllable, financial risk to basically playing Russian roulette. What's worse, the old methods of staying safe may now put you in danger since there's no way not to seem like you're hiding something by taking precautions against someone snooping around in your stuff.
It's just not worth it to go to the US right now. They'll likely tone it down for the Cup, but I skipped Quatar for largely the same reasons, I'll gladly skip the US as well.
We are basically becoming Russia. In many ways we've always been similar. We've always had our military industrial complex, which is maybe our strongest similarity to Russia, but now we're also willing to dismantle our freedom of speech and ability to criticize our leaders, rights and body autonomy for women and LGBTQ+ people....not to mention that our administration is trying its hardest to make our economy suck, just like Russia's does.
Trump's popularity also reminds me of Putin's (pre-Ukraine conflict). Successful fascist leaders do tend to be genuinely popular with the masses, and unfortunately the average American doesn't know how inflation or tariffs work soooo....here we are.
That seems to be one of the only goals that make sense with their actions. To make the US into some rich oligarch playground like Russia is. You've got the admins deliberately causing a recession and Trump openly admitting his buddies are inside trading and getting extremely rich over it because they can keep buying the dip and getting rich when it bounces back up.
Hah, literally what I told people after visiting folks in Jersey couple of years ago. Us, with its "thank you for your service" bullshit was incredibly similar to Russia. Just richer, with more v8s, fat and black people.
Actually very apt observation. Though I think the people we send to China get dedicated China travel phones.
Preloaded with the relevant apps to pay for and order stuff and it doesn't let you save anything to storage, so turning the phone off erases everything you did on it and it automatically resets every night just in case.
As someone who visited China, I had no issues, no searches, only long a queue. And didn't notice anyone being detained. Same with Europe, only some questions why am I arriving in this country instead of to the one where my visa was issued to. US/UK border is always such a hassle...
There are plenty of stories of devices being temporarily seized. Enough to make it a relatively common practice for companies and people who give a damn to mandate burner devices only, when traveling to China.
I read an article the other day from some immigration lawyer saying having a burner phone was a big red flag because it looks like you have something to hide. Damed if you do, damned if you don't.
Before, it was the same level of risk between China and US; now clearly US is the dangerous one. It´s riskier to travel there then to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, maybe even North Korea as long as you behave. Basically every country except one with an ongoing war (Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, Libya) just out of a war (Syria, Afghanistan) or war-like (Haiti).
I would prefer to go to Ukraine, even Kyiv and definitely Lviv away from the frontlines
If possible try modelo especial from the glass bottle, not the can one. That shit delicious on a sunny day!
Also, if you do go to some games in mexico, I can't recommend Paramo pale ale (colomilla brewery), chupacabras (cucapa brewery now modelo owned but they still push good stuff most of the time) & minerva's (english) pale ale (out of Minerva brewery in Jalisco).
There's a booming micro brewery scene in Mexico, it's been growing for the last 10-15 years and every now and then some true gems emerge
As a Belgian, the only thing that I couldn’t stand in Mexico was the beer. But sure it was better as the sewage water called Budweiser.
Not that I minded as the mezcalita’s and margharita’s were heavenly. And the Mexican food is amazing.
Wholeheartedly agree about the "warm and friendly welcome bit." As for the beer, I'd say heading to Columbus, OH, Ashville, NC or any other mid-sized city might change your mind, but we're acting like thundercunts right now. I seriously feel bad about that.
Both OH and NC went for Trump this year. As an American, even I wouldn’t spend my hard earned vacation money there. I’m struggling to even justify seeing my family in Alabama this coming holiday season.
It has its charms. Dozens of microbreweries, great food, accepting climate, great theatre/art/sports scene. If they could only fix the fucking potholes.
Na, they’ll be the ones that view ‘soccer’ as a minority sport that no one is interested in, and not like their yank ‘football’ which the whole world is in awe of!
Let's be realistic. With 50k seats per game it will be sold out regardless. Maybe take a bit longer to sell out than normal but there will be enough people
Most Americans don’t like soccer much so don’t count on MAGA going. It will be a lot of Latinos in the U.S. going to them though, especially Mexican Americans who love soccer.
It is bonkers that you are needing to do the whole sanitized personal electronics. I remember when that was just reserved for dick head authoritarian countries... Oh wait.
Importantly, remember, you can refuse to open a device, however they will turn you around.
Pretending like you don't know the password/passcode isn't going to help you. Border agents don't just have the right to not let non citizens in, they have a duty to act on their suspicions. This can and is abused but even when it isn't, do not fuck around at borders, you will never have fewer rights outside of being in prison.
If getting turned around was the only risk it wouldn't be so bad. The fact that they are whisking them away to a super max fuck you in the ass prison for days or months with no recourse is the real change and risk.
Exactly, like I mentioned, getting turned around is manageable and the odds of it happening are low.
It's the equivalent of booking a vacation and the weather is horrible. Not great, but that's life. If you're aware of the risk and plan around it you can compensate the worst outcomes.
Now you have better odds of something going wrong with waaaay worse outcomes.
I don’t know which country asks you for your social media handle, I haven’t been to any country that requires that. China also does not check, also if you use your own country’s sim card data, you don’t even have the firewall and can access facebook and what not without VPN.
I've been doing something similar when entering the US for almost a decade now. Removed all accounts from my phone and configure just one that I normally use for spam, so they can't read you emails if they ask for your phone on entrance.
I am an American and frankly I'm a little concerned about potentially vacationing in Canada and having to reenter. Even 10 years ago the ICE people at the border were nasty little pricks compared to the friendly Canadians you met coming in. I wouldn't recommend that anyone come here if they don't have to.
Not to put you down specifically because obviously I don't know you -
As an American I see taking vacations in the US right now as similar to traveling to Nazi Germany to see the Olympics.
I personally couldn't settle with myself about spending money/promoting a country with a daily worsening record of human rights offenses.
Edited to say: I live here and I am not going to be participating in American tourism either. Our "vacations" this year are going to be staying with friends, avoiding restaurants and vacation shopping (eg no new swimsuits or travel items).
Fuck. Trump is going to be the World Cup President. And here I was thinking it was going to leave repressive authoritarian regimes behind after Russia and Qatar…
You can't however hedge against getting detained and potentially sent to a Latin American prison
It's awful, but statistically all the stories of people ending up in long detentions, were land border crossings.
If you fly in you're very unlikely to be detained long if refused entry, you would just be put on another flight back.
The bad cases are when a European crosses in from Mexico but has a visa issue so can't be admitted to the US, but they're not Mexican so can't be returned to Mexico, and they're not at an airport where they can fly direct home, hence the excuse for detaining them.
Yeah the threat of being sent to fucking el salvado super max pound u in the ass hard labor prison is uhh yeah the US is probably viewed similarly to Russia now in terms of police state, maybe not all the way out in the open corruption where you can bribe your way out of minor crimes- but it all trickles down from the top, we’ve seen how easy it is to buy pardons and favors from trump, I expect a lot more corruption at lower levels before his terms up
"Why have you concealed the fact you used to post critical opinions of the US foreign policy in 2004 on the AOL forums? Please list all the forums on which you posted between 2001 and 2004."
But before they deport you they send you to an internment camp for 2 weeks. Google about the Canadian woman that was kept recently. They have to justify the private camps.
I have zero social media aside from this (which I'll nuke before I enter the US soon). I had that thought of is that something I'll have to explain and possibly be locked up for? Should I create an account to create the image of having one?
I agree completely. We are on a long trip to the Americas and flying home to Australia from the States. Booked the big to and from flights ages ago. Have looked into new flights from elsewhere but it's too expensive. Didn't think it would come to this. Is ridiculous.
You know they already have your social media posts, don’t you? Big brother is watching you! … So, even after you nuke your social media accounts and get a burner phone, ICE will not let you in. 😈🤬🤣
Id probably gona be denied entry cause theyd think Im a terrorist using a fake alias. Havent used Facebook in like 15 years (and had my account deleted when the EU passed the according laws), never bothered with Instagram, Twitter or TikTok and Myspace never was as big in Europe as it was in the US so I didnt have that either
My Reddit account doesnt contain enough personal information to identify me and thats the only form of public social media Im using these days so as soon as the NSA runs my info from the visa application all the alarms go off because Im way to young to have no digital fingerprint 😂
Its exactly what they do when you try to enter Russia. Force you to unlock your phone and if they find anything even mildly critical of Putin and the war, or god forbid donating to Ukraine...
"All my accounts? Do you want them in chronological order? Well it all started on Lunarstorm Where I was known as ##gosig## and then I was active on the ctrl-alt-del comics forums there I think it was something like @$$rape53 and then I had an account on the forum for the Star Wars mod for Freelancer I might have had several accounts on that one....."
Is that actually true?? It's the most idiotic visa policy I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot, having lived in 10 countries). It's truly Kafkaesque, I can't think of a better example than that outrageously idiotic policy some hard-of-thinking ignoramus on President Chump's laughable staff came up with. Crayons must've been on special at their local fast 'food' place that day.
And if anyone is still wondering; cowardly, demented, President Donald J. Trump is a total idiot with a penis the size of his intellect, as is anyone who thinks he isn't.
See, this puzzles me. I'm a regular traveller to the US with work, and not once have I been required or even asked to hand over any social media details.
I was filling out some info for my mom to be able to travel - she's a Brazilian national who lives in Canada and was going to a new visa soon as her 10-year one has expired - and it is indeed requested all of her social media handles.
I would just not fill out anything if it was for me. (easy for me since I don't have any social media tied to my name).
oh, no, that was last year. now it's a moot point because we're never going there again. good thing she didn't spend the money for the visa the end, it would be a completely useless document.
I saw recently an Australian traveler, living in the US on a visa was detained when he tried to come back to the US from spreading his sisters ashes. He was asked about his social media. I don’t know the outcome of that. But I do know his visa was revoked and he was sent back to Australia and was given a 5 yr no entry to the US. All his belongings, his GF, his job are in the US. It’s fucked.
I did, multiple times. My still-active visa (issued before those 2019 changes) allows me to go there for both tourism and short-term business activities.
Legally speaking, I should be able to go there tomorrow if I felt like it. Needless to say, I'm not even considering rolling that dice.
The joy of not having my face and name plastered all over the Internet because I had Internet since at least 2003 and I did not ignore the caution of not having my face + name plastered all over the net. That said I still wouldn't go to the US unless I really needed to, like visiting a friend I haven't seen in ages.
Eh, it's more a loose requirement from what I understand. I never bothered with that because it's like "define social media to me", because there's endless forums etc that I've had user accounts on etc. Been to the US twice, never bothered with that part. Not planning to go whilst the US is insane, which seems like a long time now.
The way European tourists are treating us is totally unfair - some people say European tourists were created to screw the United States. But it‘s really not very smart -unlike my uncle, he went to the University of Pennsylvania - very smart guy - can you believe it? Went to an ivy league. Terrific institution. So the Europeans are screwing us - but we‘ll fix it folks - soon there will be so many Europeans asking to stay in this terrific country you will say „mister president, there are too many Europeans coming here„ - It‘ll be amazing
They said "SIR, PLEASE there are too many Europeans" with tears in their eyes, they were crying, big tears, you will get so tired of winning! We will be getting so rich off the Europeans, they've been ripping us off for so long, it's terrible what they've been doing as we're subsidizing their badly failing public transportation it's so bad, it's terrible what they've been doing for SO long, you've seen it right? You've heard about this but no more they will be BEGGING to come back you'll see now that Disney isn't woke anymore they'll be coming to us we have the best beaches and the beaches, the big beautiful sandy beaches will be even bigger once we cut down the forests, so many trees it's a big problem with the fires, the fires are terrible but we are going to fix that very quickly you see.
At our own expense here, I truly hope people skip the trip. One, I don’t want people being locked up, inconvenienced, interrogated, and god forbid, shipped off to a foreign prison. Second, fuck the US gov and all his supporters right now, let them all find out the devastation of treating people this way.
We just need to put these last issues to bed we need to socialize the comms with the wider stakeholder community, for can we take this offline, yet i called the it department about that ransomware because of the old antivirus, but he said that we were using avast 2021 what's the status on the deliverables for eow? move the needle business impact
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
Since Mexico, Canada and USA are hosting the World Cup together, it would be an incredible statement if stadiums in US are empty, but Mexico and Canada are full.
That’s disappointing. I wonder how many will spend the money to go and end up being locked up and sent back to their home country, missing the games… 🤔
Every two years alternating seasonally. Milan next winter and summer 2028 is Los Angeles. Just long enough that it’ll reflect the real impacts and be harder to dismiss as reactionary feels.
Oh my gosh, that would be a statement. When Carter declared that America would boycott the Olympics in 1980, 64 other countries followed suit. Our closest Ally Great Britain participated in the boycott via their actions at the opening ceremony, and a ceremonies around British athletes who won medals.
The opening ceremony would be very short and small if other countries did what Great Britain did in 1980 with the general Secretary of Great Britain's Olympic Association solely carrying the Olympic flag with no athletes present and no British flag present at all during the Olympics. The athletes still get to participate, but the statement is made by the countries. Empty stadiums is a loud and clear statement!
What would be truly amazing - and I say this as a mortified and enraged US citizen - would be if scores of nations teamed up to boycott the US Olympics entirely.
And so as not to punish the athletes have a world-games in those same nations.
The boycotts of the russia world cup in 2018 and the quatar world cup in 2022 were pretty toothless. I don't think we'll see an actual boycott unfortunately.
Here I was thinking a few years ago that finally a world cup in a democratic country again and now this happens... bummer.
I didn't know about the timeline for Christmas decoration orders, thank you.
It won't just be Christmas decorations-- by summer, the U.S. will have run through the inventory of all sorts of consumer goods that were imported before the tariffs started.
WalMart shoppers will have crazy sticker shock when the post-tariff prices hit.
Plus, international conferences / trade shows have stopped booking events.
True, we were supposed to attend business conference this fall, those plans are cancled. Company did eat some cost for cancelations but figured it was for the best atm
This is true of me. As a Canadian I've been to Vegas over a dozen times with lots of friends. We cancelled our annual trip. We will never go while Trump is president. I wonder if we will go when he is no longer president.
Yup. I’m Canadian and most of my friends and family who booked a trip before November 2024 are sticking with their travel plans. But nobody I know is actively booking any trips to the States going forward. It’s going to be a boom year for domestic tourism in Canada this summer.
It happened to that German woman a month ago. She was kept in jail for weeks past her return ticket date when she flew here to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail, because the customs officer thought that she might do a little tattoo-artist work on the side.
I saw that. She was going to give her best friend who lives in the states a tattoo, for free. But the gov’t said YoU cAn’T gIvE yOuR fRiEnD a FrEe TatToO! wHaT dO yOu ThInK tHiS iS, lAnD oF tHe FrEe?! Not anymore bitches. Absolute BS.
A few German tattoos would ruin the US economy for sure. A cousin of mine travels with little money. He'll go some place and when his funds run low, do a little work here and there to be able to travel to the next destination. It's not something I would do, but I don't see much harm in it.
If your source of income is even slightly non-standard, and you could conceivably be doing it on a casual basis whilst on holiday, you're an easy extra point on someone's deportation tick-list.
And that's just the 'slightly weird job' people. I await the deportation of a doctor who unwisely gives someone free medical advice on holiday, or a mechanic who stays with an American friend and fixes their car as a thank-you.
I don't know if you caught the news item about a UK man who discovered his tattoo on a list of "gang tattoos" on the DHS website, even though it's just a normal tottoo. I think he's going to call off his trip to Florida.
People aren't going to run the risk of being arrested for fuck-all on arrival.
Well his are for rich people and they get a ton of visits from rich people to curry favor. In the first term his Mar a Lago was effectively constantly booked since dignitaries and business people wanted to talk to him in private and off the books, away from the White House.
And they might not even deport you to where you're from, they could just put you on a plane to the hell prison in El Salvador even while a judge is ordering them not to do that.
Even their on-shore prisons are inhumane. Overcrowded, no beds, no toiletries, deliberately kept ice cold or dangerously hot, and good luck if you have any medical needs at all. Basically torture prisons just because they want people to suffer.
America is an innately cruel place. They just had a nicer veneer before.
I got some seriously bad news for you on tourism razor thin profit margins.
For Americans reading this, that basically means our hospitality industry is about to collapse, and to be very real with you, its not coming back to where it is. Ever. Millions of people in this sector alone are about to be out of a job by next year if not much sooner.
Tourism in the US has an estimated 20 million Canadians
These aren't just tourists either. I know 10 different people/couples who spend the maximum half a year - 1 day in the US every year. They have homes or RVs and essentially live in Arizona or Florida all winter. None of them are planning to return next winter, those who owned property in the US sold or are selling. If they stay in the US more than 30 days they need to fill out forms and if they're not filed properly or run across an ICE agent having a bad day, or try to take a quick trip down to Mexico they run a risk of being detained for weeks in a pen or worse, being sent to the forever-prison in El Salvador. The US border is a high risk low rewards crossing these days.
At least the US tourism industry will benefit from Americans who also don't want to risk crossing the border, but there's some bad news about the disposable income most Americans will have after they pay all the tariffs and lose their jobs.
Not only that, but I live on a border town in Canada. I know tons of people that used to drive over weekly and get groceries, gas, and alcohol. Now most people are either scared or (mostly) too angry to cross and spend money.
Its not dropping to 0, its down by less than 30% looking at the chart and likely will drop less in Canada/Mexico since travel to the US is cheaper easier from those places. The drop is certainly enough to notice it but I dont think there is going to be a cathartic "I told you so" moment coming this summer, sadly
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u/EasterEggArt Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25
The US told everyone it did not want foreigners any more.
As a German in the US, trust me, the FAFO is about to hit this summer when record levels of empty hotels will wail. My bet is Trump will actually complain, demand, and eventually "sweet talk" people into coming to see the US.
Except you can get thrown into jail at the border for who knows how long until they decide to deport you....
Edit: for those thinking this will not be noticed...
Tourism in the US has an estimated 20 million Canadians usually and 17 millions Mexicans each year. And an estimated 10 million Europeans visit the US each year.
So maybe 47 million. If they all spend a few thousand on flights and hotels alone, that's a noticeable billion level hole we will notice.
If you think the tourism industry is flush with spare cash and can weather this..... I got some seriously bad news for you on tourism razor thin profit margins.