Trump Is Destroying The American National Brand Although— Not In Hungary, Israel Or Belarus

I had never been out of the country when I left home, hitched across the U.S. from Brooklyn to L.A. and stowed away on a ship that was supposed to be the beginning of a complicated trip to Tonga, a small island kingdom in the South Pacific whose only scheduled contact with the outside world then was a semi-annual mail boat from New Zealand. I was around 16 years old. Long story, short, I was discovered in one of the ship’s lifeboats before we left San Pedro, beaten up and tossed ashore.

I never thought too much about going to Tonga again after that— although I did take note of Mike Pence’s heavy breathing when he posed for a selfie with the oiled up Tongan star of 2016 Olympics Opening Ceremony, 32 year old taekwondo and cross country skiing athlete Pita Taufatofua.

Now that Trump hates Pence, he is taking steps to make sure he will never see Taufatofua again. Over the weekend, Adam Taylor reported that Señor Taco “is considering restricting entry to citizens of an additional 36 countries in what would be a significant expansion of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration early this month.” And aside from Tonga, Trump and Rubio are looking at banning citizens of Angola; Antigua and Barbuda; Benin; Bhutan; Burkina Faso; Cabo Verde; Cambodia; Cameroon; Democratic Republic of Congo; Djibouti; Dominica; Ethiopia; Egypt; Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Ivory Coast; Kyrgyzstan; Liberia; Malawi; Mauritania; Niger; Nigeria; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; South Sudan; Syria; Tanzania; Tuvalu; Uganda; Vanuatu; Zambia; and Zimbabwe.

I’ve spent years living and traveling abroad, where I almost always found a well-spring of good feelings for Americans, even in Iran, Afghanistan, France and— not counting Moscow— Russia. Blanket-banning citizens of dozens of countries is no way to build good will. And some of these countries re important to U.S. foreign policy objectives, particularly Egypt, Djibouti. The Post reported that “Democrats and other critics of the Trump administration have described its efforts to issue blanket travel bans on selected nations as xenophobic and bigoted, pointing to Trump’s efforts to block travel from Muslim-majority nations in his first term and the high number of African and Caribbean nations targeted during this term… While the travel ban was rescinded under the Biden administration, Trump repeatedly pledged to reinstate it on the campaign trail, stating it would be ‘bigger than before.’”

Over the weekend, Guy Lawson noted how badly America’s brand is doing now that Trump is back in the White House— starting with our closest allies in Canada. Many Canadians, he wrote,  agree that “crossing over to America is not just taboo— it’s a kind of betrayal, even borderline treasonous. For decades, the greatest cross-border threats to Canada have come from the south: guns, drugs, weak beer, idiotic wars, reactionary politics, reality TV, idiotic wars, and now epically stupid tariffs and the deranged lunge for annexation. For Americans, Canada has always been a place of refuge— for loyalists fleeing the Revolutionary War and slaves in the Civil War, to draft dodgers during the Vietnam War and women in the all-too-real fictional gender war of The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Lawson wrote that “as a self-described “mastermind marketer and salesman, Trump has always placed a supreme premium on the value of his brand, claiming it alone is worth billions— ascribing the greatest part of his invented net worth to the intangible monetary appeal of his P. T. Barnum carnival act. As president, Trump has enriched himself and his grifter children with corrupt crypto and creepo businesses, with his family demanding the construction of a Trump-branded golf course for peasants to play on the rice paddies of Vietnam as their latest extortion racket, along the way plunging the concept of graft to a new low— perhaps even rivaling his hero Vladimir Putin. But Trump is also the steward of the most valuable brand in human history: the United States. Instead of Trump’s paltry few billion, the brand of America is worth trillions upon trillions, an incalculable value proposition that is undergoing the most radical relaunch since New Coke in the 1980s.”

A Manhattan advertising executive for a global agency once hired to promote “Brand USA” during the Obama years tells me that the approach used then was simple and effective: democracy, independence, freedom. The key phrases now, he says, are capitalism and culture— but that is putting the best possible spin on what’s really happening to America’s global reputation.

“The world is in denial about what’s really going on in America,” the executive says. “The election was a mirror reflecting America back to itself— the election is who America really is right now— and that is frustrated young white dudes who are angry at the world.”

… A little appreciated aspect of the self-generated reality of the con artist is that they need to surround themselves with people stupid or craven enough to go along with their scams. The same is true for Trump, just on an epic level, with the halfwitted J.D. Vance and fake tough guy Don Jr. leading the charge, along with wide-eyed maniacs like Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller, and Kash Patel, as the new brand ambassadors for the United States. Then there are those who are wise to the con, but who believe it’s profitable to go along with the Big Lie while it lasts— like Elon Musk, depending on the level of ketamine in his system measured against his naked, corrupt self interest and sadistic impulses. Together, as the con artist preys upon the gullibility of his followers, promising fantasies that are literally too good to be true, they are enveloped by the giddy sense that if the lies are big enough the bullshit might actually come true.

… The statistics about declining tourism revenue in America aren’t simply numbers: This is a cultural and patriotic and civilizational transformation, a fact that MAGA extremists delight in, but that will only further isolate America in Trump’s chaotic, delusional, and cowering country. Canadians love America, truth be told, but not at the price of their dignity and independence and self-respect. The half-filled state fairs in Minnesota and the condos for sale in Florida and the struggling Maine hotels are a sign of a troubling change for relations between the countries, but on a deeper level they represent the fact that the two countries are really parting ways.

As seen from the far side of the 49th parallel, America doesn’t seem to be turning its back on Canada, so much as it is turning its back on itself— its history and Constitution, the world, the future. To Canadians, America is freefalling into an abyss where even freedom of speech is becoming a questionable right. Consider this: Possessing the magazine you’re reading— in print, on your electronic device— could now easily constitute a crime at the border crossing into America from Canada, if you possess the wrong nationality or passport or skin color or religion or immigration status. As Canadians are discovering on the frontier to the United States, all it takes is for an American border patrol officer to confiscate your belongings and search for any expression that is objectionable to the Trump regime— whatever the Dear Leader says that means on any given day, a category that might easily include Rolling Stone.

Cross into Canada at the same frontier, over the majestic Thousand Islands Bridge spanning the blue waters of the St. Lawrence River, and you, dear reader, can find yourself on the far side of the only actual wall Donald Trump has ever successfully constructed, in a land that is not seized by the pathetic rage and self-pity of a sad old man— in the true north, strong and free.

There’s not much revenue generated from Tongans visiting the U.S. But international tourism is a huge source of revenue— albeit significantly less so now than before Trump went to war with the rest of humanity. The U.S. welcomed 72.4 million international visitors in 2024, down 7 million from 2019, with spending heavily reliant on domestic tourists. International visitors spend eight times more per trip ($4,000 vs. $500 for domestic travelers), making their decline economically significant.

Beyond tariffs and rhetoric, a strong U.S. dollar, travel advisories (from Canada, UK, Germany, Belgium) and fears of border detentions deter visitors and negatively influence purchasing decisions. The U.S. is the only country among 184 economies expected to see a steep decline in international visitor spending in 2025, delaying full recovery to 2029. Tourism spending is projected to drop by about 7% ($12.5 billion) in 2025, with some estimates suggesting losses up to $21 billion or more if trends continuee to worsen. Canada, the largest source of international tourists to the U.S., has seen a sharp decline in travel. Overnight land trips dropped 26% year-over-year in March 2025, and air travel fell 14%. Land crossings at key points like Niagara Falls and Vancouver-Seattle plummeted by 42% and 48%, respectively, compared to 2024. A 20% drop in Canadian visitors could cost the U.S. $2.1 billion annually, given their high per-trip spending.

As the second-largest source of U.S. tourists, Mexico saw a 20% year-over-year decline in visitors in 2025. Mexican tourists spend an average of $4,000 per trip, contributing significantly to the $155 billion in annual international tourism spending. A reduction in Mexican visitors is leading to substantial losses. Other countries with the biggest fall-offs are the U.K., Germany and the rest of Western Europe. Travel advisories citing safety concerns, including for LGBTQ+ travelers, and negative perceptions of U.S. policies (e.g., tariffs and border detentions) have reduced interest. A YouGov poll in March 2025 found 53% of Britons, for example, hold an unfavorable view of the U.S. while 56% of Germans reported an unfavorable view of the U.S.

Foreigners are also spending less on U.S.-made products... and not just because Canadians are actively boycotting U.S.-made products in response to tariffs and political rhetoric. Even Netflix is dying in Canada because of Trump. Similar to Canada, Mexico’s response to tariffs includes reduced purchases of U.S. goods and it’s the same in Western Europe and China.