The Republican Party’s Fortress America Is Costing Us Billions…Not To Manage The Reputational Damage

Trump Has Rebranded The Ugly American

One job of the next president will be to make our country a more welcoming place again, turning back policies that Trump and the GOP have promulgated that have made the U.S. into a loathed asshole country.

International visitor spending is projected to fall to $169 billion in 2025, down from $181 billion in 2024, representing a 22.5% decline. This translates to a $12.5 billion loss, with some estimates suggesting losses could reach $21 billion if trends continue. Based on preliminary data from the Department of Commerce, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and outside organizations, international visits to the United States fell approximately 14% in March 2025 compared to the same period last year. Travel from Canada is down 26%, down 17% from Western Europe, down 10% from South America and travel from Asia is continuing to decline as well

Suzanne Kelleher reported last month that “While tourism is booming across the rest of the world, the U.S. is a notable loser this year as tens of millions of international visitors are choosing to travel elsewhere—costing the economy up to $29 billion—and risking millions of jobs… ‘While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the closed sign,’ Julia Simpson, president and CEO of WTTC, said in a statement. In its latest client note, Tourism Economics blamed ‘sentiment headwinds’ for its projections of significant declines in visitation from Canada (-20.2%) and Western Europe (-4.9%) in 2025. Trump’s tariffs,  travel bans, inflammatory rhetoric and harsh immigration policies have combined for a chilling effect on visitors— and there’s little indication of a reversal anytime soon. ‘Given we’re halfway through the year and we’ve seen these impacts, we don't know when the stiffest headwind is, but I think it does stay sustained,’ Aran Ryan, director of industry studies at Tourism Economics, told Forbes. ‘We’re generally assuming that this persists for a while and that some of it is going to persist throughout the end of the administration.’”

“This is a wake-up call for the U.S. government,” Simpson said. “Without urgent action to restore international traveler confidence, it could take several years for the U.S. just to return to pre-pandemic levels of international visitor spend.” Yet the Trump administration and Republican party do not appear to be taking note. A Senate committee led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) slashed the budget of Brand USA, the country’s public-private destination marketing organization, from $100 million to $20 million. The U.S. Travel Association said it is “deeply concerned,” claiming that “for every $1 spent on marketing, Brand USA adds $25 to the U.S. economy,” and warning such drastic cuts will “significantly impact every sector of our industry.”

And things are about to get even worse. Yesterday, in a report from the Financial Times, Rubio’s State Department is about to launch a pilot programming two weeks that will force some tourists to post bonds for as much as $15,000 to guarantee that they won’t overstay their visas. Zehra Munir wrote that “The move marks a further expansion of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, which were a cornerstone of the president’s campaign platform.”

The government notice said those who could be subject to the programme included: “nationals of countries identified by the department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering citizenship by investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement.”

Consular officers will have three options for bond amounts— $5,000, $10,000, and $15,000— but will be expected to set the bond amount at $10,000.

In June, Trump banned citizens of 12 countries— Afghanistan, Chad, Republican of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Myanmar (with severe restrictions on Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela as well)— from entering the US, in an action that evoked the “Muslim ban” he implemented in his first term. 

The list of countries that fall under the visa program will be published on the State Department’s website, and may be amended while the pilot takes place. 

Trump’s first administration established a six-month visa bond pilot program in 2020, but it was not rolled out because of the global reduction in travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the state department.

The new program was a response to an executive order Trump signed on the day he re-entered office in January, titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” the department said.

The order directs the secretary of the treasury, alongside the secretaries of state and homeland security, to “establish a system to facilitate the administration of all bonds” under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

The state department described the program as a “tool of diplomacy,” adding that it was “intended to encourage foreign governments to take immediate action to reduce the overstay rates of their nationals when traveling to the United States for temporary visits.”

The tourism industries in Nevada and Hawaii are already feeling the impact in a very big way and international tourism is also hurting in Florida, New York and California. The isolationist fever swamp Trump dragged an all-too-willing  Republican Party into, has poisoned America’s global standing and trashed a vital sector of our economy. The far-right’s xenophobic immigration policies, antagonistic rhetoric, and self-inflicted diplomatic wounds have made the United States not just less visited— but less respected and less trusted.

What Trump and the GOP call "sovereignty" is just a euphemism for smallness. They’ve slashed funding to promote the U.S. abroad, imposed humiliating visa bond demands, and banned entire populations from setting foot on American soil— all while crowing about “freedom” and “greatness.” The result? A $29 billion hole in the travel economy, millions of jobs at risk, and lasting reputational damage that can’t be fixed by a MAGA hat or another gaudy ribbon-cutting at one of his own resorts.

This is what a nation in decline looks like— not because of immigrants or foreigners or the woke left, but because of a Republican Party that has turned its back on openness, cooperation and global leadership. America, once the dream destination, is becoming a cautionary tale and a pariah state. Future leaders will need to do more than just repair alliances or rewrite executive orders. They’ll need to rescue the very idea of America from the ashes of nativism and restore what Trump and his enablers have so casually destroyed: our welcome mat to the world.