Survey after survey has shown that the United States’ international popularity has steadily declined in recent years. That trend now appearsappears to be accelerating during U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term.

The American chattering classes tend to discuss the dangers of the country’s worsening image in terms of geopolitics and waning “soft power”—and they’re not entirely wrong. Washington’s globe-spanning alliances have long been one of its major strengths. If countries come to regard the United States as an unattractive partner with which they no longer share affinities, that can have real consequences for Washington’s ability to assert its interests overseas.

The American chattering classes tend to discuss the dangers of the country’s worsening image in terms of geopolitics and waning “soft power”—and they’re not entirely wrong. Washington’s globe-spanning alliances have long been one of its major strengths. If countries come to regard the United States as an unattractive partner with which they no longer share affinities, that can have real consequences for Washington’s ability to assert its interests overseas.

But declining appeal can also be measured in dollars—and in one sector, this is becoming increasingly evident. The U.S. tourism industry, which experienced a strong rebound in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, was hoping that 2025 would be a banner year. Instead, it’s turned out to be a disaster for reasons that aren’t likely to go away anytime soon. That, in turn, has ominous implications for foreign attendance at this year’s World Cup, billed as one of the biggest international get-togethers in recent memory. Bookings are already lagging behind expectations, and industry professionals are fretting over a possible “washout.”

The World Travel and Tourism Council noted that the number of international visitors to the United States in 2025 fell by 5.5 percent over the previous year, translating into a 4.6 percent loss in visitor spending. That decline—almost $9 billion—looks especially dismal compared with the booming global tourism industry, where spending surged by 6.7 percent over the same time span and reached an all-time record. Why the divergence? It’s simple: Millions of visitors who might have otherwise come to the United States are opting to go elsewhere. As a result, the country was the only major destination to log a decline in international visitors in 2025, according to a report issued by the U.S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee Minority. Last year was the first time the United States experienced a travel trade deficit—meaning that Americans spent more money abroad than foreign visitors in the United States—since the travel sector began to collect data in 1999.

The causes are many. Trump’s tariffs and combative language on trade have alienated citizens of many countries that once considered themselves friendly toward the United States. His talk of turning Canada into the 51st state prompted a boycott movement north of the border, resulting in a sharp decline of visits by Canadian tourists—a brutal 22 percent, the highest drop of any country. Their absence has been felt especially sharply in Las Vegas, which once considered Canada among its most dependable markets. Vegas tourism numbers sagged by 7.5 percent in 2025—prompting some locals to talk about a “Trump slump.” Similarly, Europeans have been turned off by Trump’s threats against Greenland, stream of insults to multiple European countries, dismissive treatment of Ukraine, and wooing of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Trump administration’s election interference in favor of European right-wing populist parties also put Washington in an unfavorable light. Almost 13 percent fewer Germans and almost 8 percent fewer French visited last year.

Even so, politics is probably not the prime consideration impacting the travel calculations of potential tourists. A much more immediate factor has been Trump’swar against tourists themselves. The Trump administration appears to view international visitors less as a potential source of revenue than as stealth migrants keen to exploit any weakness in the United States’ laws. The U.S. State Department has indefinitely suspended tourism visas for visitors from 39 countries (including four whose national teams have qualified for the World Cup: Haiti, Iran, Ivory Coast, and Senegal). It has also ordered consular officials to impose tougher conditions on tourist visa applicants, including in-person interviews and scrutiny of social media posts—policies that have, along the way and probably by design, created huge application backlogs. The bulk of tourists aren’t visa applicants, but many are turned off by accounts of the tougher scrutiny at the border, especially the intrusive investigations into social media accounts.

Such measures generate waves of negative publicity even in countries that aren’t directly affected, reinforcing the image of an unwelcoming Fortress America. The message is reinforced by the administration’s efforts to raise costs for foreign travelers. The Trump administration has imposed a new surcharge of $100 for international visitors to 11 of the most popular national parks; it has also more than tripled the price for the annual parks pass for non-residents, pushing it up to $250. (It’s still $80 for Americans.)

In March, the U.S. government started charging an extra $250 “visa integrity fee” for standard tourist visas, raising the total price from $185 to $435. The additional fee isn’t being collected yet—but potential travelers may not be especially reassured by that detail. The tourism industry is already worried that confusion about whether the new fee is in effect will have a deterrent effect on World Cup visitors, even if they don’t have to pay. The warnings about higher costs for visas merely feed into an already well-established reputation that the Trump administration is determined to keep foreigners out. Lisa Simon, CEO and executive director of the International Inbound Travel Association, recently testified at a congressional hearing that the cumulative effect of the administration’s restrictions has been “a feeling of unwelcomeness.”

That’s a feeling that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seems determined to sustain. If you’re American, chances are you’ve never heard of Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, Karen Newton, or Fabian Schmidt. But if you’re French, British, or German, you’ve almost certainly encountered media stories about their horrifying treatment at the hands of ICE.

Ross-Mahé is an 85-year-old French widow who spent 16 days in ICE detention last year after being arrested for overstaying her visa in the wake of her American husband’s death. She was imprisoned under appalling conditions, sometimes shackled at the wrists and ankles, until she was deported back to France. Ross-Mahé and her late husband’s sons had been battling over his estate, and the probate judge in the case accused one of Ross-Mahé’s stepsons of initiating her arrest. The French foreign minister publicly called for her release, criticizing ICE for its harsh enforcement methods.

Newton, 65, was detained by ICE when she and her husband—both British citizens—were leaving the United States for Canada after a long road trip. Her husband had overstayed his visa, but hers was valid. She had committed no infractions. That didn’t stop ICE from holding her (along with her husband) in detention for six weeks. “Don’t go,” she toldThe Guardian about traveling to the United States. “If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”

Schmidt, a 35-year-old German citizen and U.S. permanent resident, was arrested by ICE after returning from a visit to his family in Europe. The authorities claimed they were holding him due to a 2015 misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession. The United States gives immigration authorities almost unlimited powers to retroactively look at any immigrant’s record at the border, but screening legal residents for long-ago adjudicated misdemeanors is unusual to say the least. Schmidt ended up in detention for two months—under the same harsh conditions reported by so many other detainees.

These aren’t the only stories. New Zealanders, Danes, and Australians have also been caught up in the ICE machinery, each case generating a long tail of indignant media coverage in their home countries. MAGA zealots will probably dismiss these cases as the inevitable collateral damage of a righteous campaign to cleanse the country of unwanted immigrants. This is a blinkered view at best. It ignores the palpable damage that these stories—and many others like them—have inflicted on the United States’ international reputation.

But such problems can seem abstract to much of the U.S. population: Why should anyone care about the alleged injustices meted out to a few pesky foreigners?

The hotel owners who are now contending with declining bookings; the airlines forced to cancel flights; and the cooks, receptionists, and service staff who have lost their jobs due to the decline in international tourism undoubtedly have their own opinions on that score. The sad tale of sagging tourism offers merely one more reminder that the U.S. economy does not exist in isolation from the rest of the world—and that the effort to put up barriers often causes more problems than it solves.

Earlier this month, the Academy of Management, an international association of business school professors, announced that it was canceling its 2027 planned conference in Seattle and moving its future meetings overseas for the foreseeable future. One of its members told the Financial Times that Canadian and European members of the organization were worried about “immigration issues.”

Perhaps even more revealing was the decidedly uncompromising response of a U.S. State Department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, whom the Financial Times asked for comment. “We are upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through the visa process,” Pigott said, “making clear that entry to the United States is a privilege—not a right—and that the safety of the American people comes first.” The absurdity of his own statement—the implication that the administration is working hard to protect us from nefarious business instructors—seemed utterly lost on Pigott. Let us hope that the World Cup festivities will endure despite the efforts of diligent public servants like him.