Canada’s travel is shrinking time to the US following Trump’s tariff threat
After President Donald Trump’s tariff threat, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged people to travel domestically.
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- Some American tourists are rethinking international travel due to concerns about US politics and potential negative perceptions abroad.
- A global rescue survey found that 72% of respondents believe that Americans will be perceived more negatively overseas in 2025.
- While some Americans are cautious about their international identities, others continue to travel internationally, they keep in mind political debates.
Terry and Chris Wells consider themselves veteran travelers, usually traveling abroad several times each year. However, this is the first year their summer trips are not to international destinations.
The Georgia-based couple had planned a trip to Seoul this August – even booking a hotel – when “all” urged them to rethink US politics and the intensification of conflict with other countries.
Wells doesn’t believe she and her husband, 56, are not safe in Seoul, but “too much is happening” in the political situation that makes her uncomfortable. “I don’t really know. I’m just anxious and I’m rarely anxious,” she said.
Wells aren’t the only ones who hesitate to identify themselves as Americans abroad. More and more American travelers are worried about facing hostility overseas. Their American labels are worried that they will not be welcomed by others who have been inflamed by President Donald Trump’s comments and policies.
Some are worried, others are embarrassed by their connection to the unstable political landscape of America.
A survey by Global Rescue in April found 72% of 11,000 respondents (most Canadian and the US-based, who believe Americans will be “a more negatively recognized overseas in 2025 due to recent US international policy proposals.” This concern follows recent US foreign policy moves and an outspoken president who has stoked tensions with other countries, from trade wars to tough immigration policies to famous deportations, along with rhetoric about Greenland and Canada’s annexation.
When some foreigners turn to boycott the US, American travelers wonder how far stigma will go when traveling internationally.
“We proudly wore our July 4th T-shirt with the American flag overseas, and there was no problem,” Wells said. “Undoubtedly (now) – it’s like wearing a target on our backs.”
Step lightly like an American
According to Expedia’s summer travel outlook, domestic travel and nearby holidays like the Caribbean are expected to thrive this summer, but not all Americans have given up on massive international travel. Searches for long distance destinations like Italy, Spain and Japan have risen, and travel platforms have found that perennial tropical regions of Cancun, Mexico and Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic, remain strong among Americans.
But when Americans are abroad, they are cautious about how they were once seen at the new border, if they even mention where they came from. Alicia Walter, 29, and Nate Stark, 41, have traveled the world for the past five years. Just recently they noticed a new kind of reaction from people who learned they were Americans. Since the November election, conversations with locals have often been turning to Trump. The subjects mentioned by couples tend to induce strong opinions.
When a full-time travel content creator who shares a trip as a passport couple was in Santa Severa, a quaint Italian village in early May, locals asked why they were visiting and wondered if they were “trying to escape Trump.” The couple politely laughed at it.
“Every time we say we’re from America now, it seems like it’s back to (Trump).
The couple said political discourse would not be stressed or tense when they travel abroad, even if it was safe, but they would guide the topic from introducing themselves as Californians and talking directly about the United States. “We don’t draw unnecessary attention to the fact that we are Americans.”
They do their best to drive diving into political debate and keep it polite. “We’re always trying to avoid conversation,” Walter said. “We’re very Vag about our reaction.”
Other travelers take a bold approach. Alessandra Riao, a tour guide based in Naples, Italy, said the Americans she works for are “really worried” about how Europeans react to them. Last month, two American visitors told her they thought they were wearing a pin that read, “I didn’t vote for him.”
“Taboo Conversation”
However, Riao added that he has not yet seen or heard local people react negatively to tourists. “Napolitans are famously welcoming, and political differences rarely get in the way of personal connections,” she said. “The concerns are realistic before travelling, but experiences of urban warmth and openness usually decay,” she noted in part because many people’s livelihoods depend on tourism.
Jack Napton, a traveler from Tahoe, California, had similar experiences to what Liao reported on his trip to several European countries in April. In advance, he was worried that it was not just tourists, but Americans who were worried about possible repulsions. He was most “worried” about visiting Spain after reading several articles about the country’s movement against overtourism, including locals spraying water guns in protest.
After exploring Barcelona, Spain, Napton was surprised by the lack of political discourse. “I just heard there might be anti-Trump sentiment,” Napton, 79, said after the trip. “I was on two different tours with people from multiple countries and there was no political story at all.”
In Athens, Greece, one of the Napton taxi drivers spoke about Trump, “It’s all.” But with an open mind, Napton was not angry at the polite conversation, even in the opinions he opposed. In fact, he said, that’s why he likes to travel.
Even when locals raised Trump, Stark and Walter looked back on why they were offensive. They believe that Americans feel that political topics are “taboo conversations” compared to people from other cultures. “If someone says that’s a possibility of a heated conversation, just like a stranger on the street,” Walter said.
However, the couple has no plans to curb international travel. “Even in countries we’ve visited, in countries with more political tensions with us, they’ve still been very welcoming as tourists,” Stark said.
