U.S. citizens no longer have access to most of the world | Hacker News Reader

U.S. citizens no longer have access to most of the world

cbc.ca

181 pointscolinprince256 comments

I don't understand the problem... There's a pandemic, so people in areas that are more affected shouldn't be traveling as much. The US has been heavily affected, therefore Americans shouldn't be traveling internationally without a really good reason. Americans are not experiencing what Sri Lankans experience, because Americans can't go anywhere, and mostly shouldn't be going anywhere; Sri Lankans (under normal circumstances) experience real pain because of visa issues.

The article doesn't bother to interview any Americans that these travel restrictions have caused actual problems for. That would have been more helpful than interviewing a European academic. An anecdote (or some actual data) would helpful describe the real problem instead of just saying, "Take that, America!"

> There's a pandemic, so people in areas that are more affected shouldn't be traveling as much.

Indeed, but people from places like Thailand are allowed to travel because their nation has the pandemic under control! Why should the US be so behind Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and so on? It's not for lack of money.

> Americans are not experiencing what Sri Lankans experience, because Americans can't go anywhere, and mostly shouldn't be going anywhere; Sri Lankans (under normal circumstances) experience real pain because of visa issues.

I agree. We are still highly privileged.

Yeah I don’t really get the influx of nationalistic clickbait on HN lately... it’s super bizarre

The world feels like its falling apart with nationalism. Journalists should be more uniting and bring the world together, instead they're chasing what the readers want - a spice mix that gets people high on nationlism.

Don't worry, we've got a whole load of it right here in US as well.

Remember the pale blue dot? That pale blue dot is festered with a disease, and that's not just COVID-19.

I hope a couple years from now we look back on these times with a lessons learned mentality and a stronger sense of fellowship as a world. If we can get here I know we can get out, I just dearly hope it is sooner rather than later.

The US has a lot of issues that are not the norm for wealthy, developed countries. Some ways of talking about that are more socially acceptable and/or more effective than others.

It's generally not acceptable to say things like "The third world country of America." Most people don't have much sympathy for poor Americans.

But travel restrictions are an issue that will mostly impact well-heeled Americans. So I see this title as code for "Your country is so in the toilet, it's actually starting to hurt the rich people, you fools! Maybe you should finally bother to do something about it!"

It's not PC and not socially acceptable to express ideas like that more baldly. It's much more acceptable to post articles like this one that say the same thing more implicitly about topics people with money might actually personally care about.

I know your really just trolling and it doesn’t really matter cause this whole thread was removed by the mods anyway for breaking the rules... but if you really think that the richest country in the world needs so much help I think you should get out of whatever bubble you are in and examine some material facts. Do they have issues absolutely yes but so does every country.

US, Europeans, nobody can travel everywhere right now. Furthermore the US is doing better on coronavirus than plenty of countries per capita (Belgium, Italy, France, Sweden, UK for starters). The world is particularly stressful right now but that doesn’t mean we should result to nationalistic flame bait. We’re stronger with the US, democratic nations should stick together not bicker endlessly.

I wasn't trolling.

The US is one of only a few countries without maternity leave. The others are extremely poor.

Most developed countries have some kind of national healthcare coverage. Our employer-based insurance has all kinds of problems associated with it.

Etc.

You sound like you aren't American (with referring to it as "they"). I am American and spent nearly six years homeless and got to see the dark underbelly and how very hard we intentionally make it for people when something goes wrong. Most other developed countries seem to do a better job of helping people when something goes wrong.

>The US is one of only a few countries without maternity leave.

That is at best misleading - see Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The EU passed similar legislation in the same year. Plenty of EU nations have passed stricter laws and so have plenty of US states.

> I am American and spent nearly six years homeless and got to see the dark underbelly and how very hard we intentionally make it for people when something goes wrong.

I am sorry you went through that but things aren't all roses outside of the states. People get pushed aside and fall through the cracks in every country. A bad experience doesn't change the overall facts here though.

>Our employer-based insurance has all kinds of problems associated with it.

Agreed - problems that are being actively debated and worked on. They can't be fixed overnight but they can and will be overcome in time. I too have spent quite a bit of time in the US. If I recall it was only in the past year or two that the majority of Americans said they would support Universal healthcare. Americans have different values and those values are shifting, many would say towards more compassionate stances which is probably good. Different values from you or I doesn't mean bad though.

Let the world have its little schadenfreude dance.

Schadenfreude? More like nauseated disbelief at watching irrational populism and its concomitant intolerance tear the world asunder.

I worry that you're just tossing insults at the wall. A poor pandemic response is surely not a good thing, but it's hard to see how it constitutes irrational populism or intolerance.

The poor pandemic response is just one symptom of our societal malaise. I think that's the point. One might expect a country to pull itself together and work for the common good in a crisis. The U.S. no longer seems capable of doing that. We're like Ahab strapped to the Moby Dick, preferring to die exacting vengeance than to live.

Is there reason to believe that the US's poor pandemic response is due to a general unwillingness to pull together? There are scattered stories of people hosting irresponsible gatherings and being jerks about masks, but those are available in every country I know of.

I think it is (although my comment about populism was not directly solely at the U.S.). As an outsider, I would attribute the poor pandemic response to lack of coherent leadership. The U.S. federal government is obviously incapable of pulling itself together across partisan lines for the greater good of the people it is supposed to serve. Even if you disagree about politics, the numbers do not lie. Just north of the border, Canada is doing literally ten times better (for the moment).

Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the pandemic response. But everything I see suggests that American leaders truly, honestly believe the health crisis isn't important enough that it should override their other priorities. Many have explicitly argued that other causes they support are just as important as the virus.

I'm someone who the travel restrictions have caused actual problems for. In March I accepted an offer for my first full-time job out of school at a company in Tokyo. I was scheduled to move in May, but the travel ban put a halt on my visa process.

In the meantime, I've started working remotely, but it has been extremely difficult due to being remote with the 13 hour time difference. This certainly isn't how I expected to start my first job.

Our reaction to the pandemic has been a huge disappointment. Since March, I've been watching closely as other countries see their first cases, make the tough decision to lock down, wait it out a few months, then finally reopen as cases fall.

Here, we never really committed to the lockdown. Where I live in Georgia, it was only a few weeks ago that the governor started recommending mask usage.

Needless to say, I don't plan ever to return to the United States once I leave. This country is hopeless.

I'm sorry to hear it. I'm sure it's been a frustrating experience, but one that would be interesting to tell and useful for people to know to understand the consequences of bad decisions. A well-written version of the article would have included one or two interviews from people like you.

> Needless to say, I don't plan ever to return to the United States once I leave. This country is hopeless.

Indeed. I was hoping this year would be my year to get out too, with a masters program abroad. Now, I'm not sure if it's wise to do that, especially as it was in finance and the finance sector in that country's taken a huge hit, and connections I have there aren't optimistic about it hiring well anytime soon.

I'm sure it's very disappointing but I'd point out that, as you probably know, Japan has travel bans that apply to the vast majority of the planet:

https://www.japan.travel/en/coronavirus/

It's hardly some unique ban that applies to the US.

The problem is the decadent conspiracy driven culture that makes a significant portion of the US population to fight initiatives that are in their best interest. That's why the US is now unable to contain the virus.

For every reasonable person there's a tin foil hat that thinks that Bill Gates wants to forcibly vaccinate them with a nanoscale identification chip under the guise of a coronavirus vaccine. Or that masks don't work and are against their freedom. Or that vaccines cause autism, or that the earth is flat, or that diversity is bad or Trump is not a racist. What a fucking circus. How could the country that sent men to the moon end up like this?

Plus, traveling to the US is not what it used to be. There are better destinations in the world with more historic richness and more beautiful architecture and scenery that do not require a stranger to check your social media activity, taking your shoes off and walking feet on a nasty airport carpet full of skin diseases or being yelled "Go back to your country" by a homeless junkie at a Starbucks (the latter happened to me).

there's a tin foil hat that thinks that Bill Gates wants to forcibly vaccinate them with a nanoscale identification chip under the guise of a coronavirus vaccine

I don't know if that's really rising to the level of a tinfoil hat belief.

Bill Gates is very much interested in a COVID vaccine, as you'd expect given his prior work. The "nanoscale chip" thing comes from this research he funded:

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-invisible-quantum-dot-tattoo...

The idea is indeed to implant a vaccination record in the skin. It's not a chip and it seems they didn't decide yet what the record would actually contain, so the 'tracking' part that gets people worked up might not be valid depending on the precise details of how the tech is used. Done right it could be very cool, IMO.

As for forced vaccination, BillG seems to have gone back and forth on that one. Sometimes he talks about the importance of persuading people to take it. But the idea he wants to force people to take the vaccine comes from this part of an interview he gave:

“Here, we clearly need a vaccine that works in the upper age range because they’re most at risk of that,” Gates said. “And doing that so that you amp it up so it works in older people and yet you don’t have side effects … you know, if we have 1 in 10,000 side effects, that’s way more, 700,000 people who will suffer from that. So, really understanding the safety at gigantic scale across all age ranges — you know, pregnant, male, female, undernourished, existing comorbidities — it’s very, very hard. And that actual decision of, OK, let’s go and give this vaccine to the entire world — governments will have to be involved because there will be some risk and indemnification needed before that can be decided on.”

Note the last part, where he says that in order to "give this vaccine to the entire world", governments will "have to be involved" because it will create bad side effects (they will "suffer") in some hypothetically large number of people and therefore, there will need to be "indemnification".

It's very ambiguous here whether he's imagining governments will need to be involved merely to make vaccine manufacturers immune from lawsuits, or whether they need to be involved to push people into take it, as governments routinely do today.

At any rate, it's interesting you think this is a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. It's really not. Quantum dots tracking if you had a Gates Foundation funded COVID vaccine is something discussed in scientific journals.

Sounds fancy, but do you realize you can just simply cover it with a piece of tape or whatever, right? It's not a RFID chip like the ones used in dogs.

And a friendly reminder: to be identified, no implants are required, just your face. Or, carrying a smartphone with all your personal information, Internet connection and GPS.

You can't cover it if someone is demanding you make it available in order to be provisioned with some essential service. And of course you can zap an RFID chip too.

The specific tech here isn't what people are worried about.

to be identified, no implants are required, just your face

Not if everyone is wearing a mask ;) But more seriously, the sort of people who worry about this also worry about widespread facial recognition too, so I'm not sure what kind of point this is meant to be.

Phones are indeed tracking nightmares but they can also be switched off or left at home without any social expectation you have one with you. A qr code embedded in your skin, that's there specifically for the purposes of allowing governments to rapidly exclude parts of the population from vital services if they don't get injected with something, has very different connotations.

At any rate I don't really want to debate the merits or demerits of quantum dots. Like I said, it might be cool, I didn't see any mention of what the dot would actually contain in the papers. But you don't have to be some kind of wild-eyed lunatic to think that maybe building this kind of infrastructure will have bad side effects. Remember that by now a lot of people don't trust public health officials at all. They've been both misleading and misled very routinely throughout COVID. Their judgement is highly suspect. They're incredibly prone to panic, bad use of data and over-confidence in the opinions of academics and scientists. Now they may soon want to mandate injections of vaccines, which do unfortunately have a long track record of safety issues regardless of what the anti-anti-vaxxers may claim. Look up Pandemrix for an example. Allowing public health to efficiently enforce their questionable judgement calls isn't obviously a win.

> I don't understand the problem

It's pretty infuriating seeing Americans say that there's nothing wrong with people being trapped in their own countries and unable to move around. Nobody should be trapped in a country, and nobody's movement should be restricted by their nationality.

So sovereign countries have no right to refuse entry to those who are not their citizens?

"Sovereign" means they have sufficient force and technical ability, not a moral right.

> Nobody should be trapped in a country, and nobody's movement should be restricted by their nationality.

What an absurd sense of entitlement. You're not entitled to travel anywhere on earth despite your utopian dreams.

> What an absurd sense of entitlement. You're not entitled to travel anywhere on earth despite your utopian dreams.

How ironic that you're calling me entitled, and then in the same breath you tell me that my freedom of movement must abide by your personal opinions regarding freedom.

You'd make a great grunt soldier in the North Korean regime. You can trap your citizens in their country, and tell them they're "entitled" for wanting to leave and pursue their "utopian dreams". What a stupid comment.

I think no one should be trapped within their country because their country won't let them leave. Being trapped because no one wants to take you is a very different situation.

I don't think anyone should be denied entry to a country if they're willing to undergo a 2 week quarantine at their own expense.

Well most of the people in the world are locked into their countries. This is just crying for a privilege lost for a short amount of time.

Yet for a foreigner must be difficult to be locked in the US. I’d freak out.

Ad hominem all you want, but you're playing word games.

> How ironic that you're calling me entitled, and then in the same breath you tell me that my freedom of movement must abide by your personal opinions regarding freedom.

If not letting certain people into my country, to use my resources, is telling you that you must abide by my "personal opinions regarding freedom", then guilty as charged. Until we receive passport protocols from on high, that's what we're stuck with.

It's incredibly entitled to say "gee I feel like living in _____, they must let me do as I please." It's not entitled to say "lol no."

Right so you believe in closed borders, travel bans, visa applications, passports, etc etc. I get it. You'd love Trump.

We can disagree on this issue, but don't tell me I'm "entitled" for saying that from a moral perspective, the concept of restricting one's international movement based on their nationality is ridiculous, especially if they don't actually live in their home country anymore.

I don't know if you actually read the article, but it is extremely humiliating that the passport lottery giving you a passport from the wrong country makes any attempt to leave your country a nightmare. Hopefully now with COVID more Americans can empathize with this, and we can get rid of this border/via/passport nonsense.

Yes, I believe in "closed borders, travel bans, visa applications, [and] passports [...]". I don't know what else "etc etc" entails though.

Is it possible that I believe in those things and find Trump repulsive? Look through my comments and tell me if you think I "love Trump". Another swing and miss at ad hominem instead of a legitimate argument.

> We can disagree on this issue, but don't tell me I'm "entitled" for saying that from a moral perspective, the concept of restricting one's international movement based on their nationality is ridiculous, especially if they don't actually live in their home country anymore.

I think it's entitlement to believe you are owed access to another person's homeland for no reason other than the fact that you're a person. By what right are you entitled to live in and enjoy the benefits of a country and society that someone else has built?

In my opinion you have no natural right to this whatsoever.

>[...] we can get rid of this border/via/passport nonsense.

Thankfully this will never happen. You can bet the farm on it.

Let me clarify my point:

1. America having a ton of COVID, and people being trapped - definitely a big problem.

2. Americans not able to travel (and most travel is for pleasure) as much as they would like because other countries temporarily won't accept us, in order to limit their own countries' exposure to COVID: not really a problem, and in fact a rational result of an actual problem (see Point 1).

I don't think anyone should be denied entry to a country if they're willing to undergo a 2 week quarantine at their own expense. Banning countries may have made sense in the beginning when COVID was blowing up, we didn't know much about the virus, and healthcare systems weren't prepared, but at this point countries should have their act together (and many like South Korea and Hong Kong have handled it extremely well), and we know that as bad as the virus is, it's magnitudes of order less deadly than we thought.

In any case, I've heard of stories of U.S. nationals living abroad being denied boarding on their flights to other foreign countries solely on the basis of their U.S. nationality. That is absurd, and should not be allowed. If I've been living in Thailand for the last month, I'm not more likely to have COVID just because I happen to have U.S. citizenship.

Also there are currently 1.2 million U.S. passports awaiting issuance with a 3-4 month waiting period due to COVID related staffing reductions, so I'm legitimately trapped in the U.S. until my new renewed passport arrives. I live abroad, so it's not like I'm trapped at home and simply giving up a 2 week holiday.

Many Americans held on to fantasies of escape to countries with functioning institutions in case of a collapse like this one. We never thought it would be us trapped in a country going down in flames. It's my friends with Taiwanese passports who have tickets to freedom and safety, and my US passport that commits me to die. This is at least an interesting and newsworthy inversion!

More than half of the US population doesn't even have a passport [1]. And I suspect the half that does has a majority of people who read religiously the NYT and have no plan to travel during this pandemic anyway.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/804627/us-passports-in-c...

As an American living (and trapped) abroad - I get looks of sympathy and shakes or the head when I mention I’m from the states.

One thing I have noticed is that countries want tourism but are now super careful about who they let in.

Recently I wanted to travel elsewhere, but was unable to enter most of the world with my American passport. So I got another extension instead for 2 more months.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that some countries now actually are beginning to realize that their economies are down, but can survive without the hordes of dirty foreigners coming to their country. So there is just no rush to reopen especially with the medium sized and fast growing countries.

Nationalism to some small degree is definitely in play in a lot of governments these days.

And with the resurgence of the virus, lockdowns are being expended and reestablished in many places.

The reopenings planned for August 1 are definitely not going to happen.

No passport is any good right now - except in its own region.

> Another thing I’ve noticed is that some countries now actually are beginning to realize that their economies are down, but can survive without the hordes of dirty foreigners coming to their country.

Are you sure? Travel and tourism account for 13% of the economy in Italy and 9% in France and Europe as a whole [1]. So maybe the pain will be tolerated only for a short while before these economies are compelled to open doors to Americans (and Chinese too).

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-tourist-hot-spots-suffe...

France has a lot of domestic tourism, and to an extent European tourism. The economy has been rebounding faster than anticipated so I'm not sure the government would be keen on pulling its pants down to bring in tourists when it's already got more than enough bad press.

The only people who will suffer are the people who destroyed their local industries in favor of tourism related jobs. It's a big issue in some parts of Greece for example, some regions lost most of their regular jobs to tourism and now that shit hits the fan it's a big problem.

The economic damage from allowing Americans in is probably bigger because the health care systems will be overwhelmed again.

Yes I’m sure. Domestic tourism is picking up a bit of the slack but not all. But people are slowly beginning to find alternative jobs and sources of income.

Do not believe that just because you’re from a western country people are going to fall to their knees to welcome you in.

It’s a mistake we’ve made in a lot of countries and people there are beginning to wrinkle their noses at us now.

Yeah, that last part is what really concerns me here. A lot of people seem to have overindexed on the US's failures to decide that their region has in comparison beaten the virus. Therefore things are safe now and there won't be a resurgence and the current state of free intra-European tourism will continue. This is, to put it delicately, not what any health official in the continent believes.

The European Union tourism rules don't exclude Americans by citizenship, despite a lot of misinformation in media reports and even certain more half-official web pages like that of the Paris airport (but these mistakes are not in the legally binding national documents nor the official European Commission recommendation text). It cares about residence officially, or as applied by some countries, where you're coming from or where you've been recently. The FAQ in the Netherlands even specifically addresses the hypothetical example of Americans living in Australia - yes such people are allowed in.

So if you live in a safe country and haven't been elsewhere recently, you should be allowed in. I'm considering trying this next month (I'm an American in Canada), and I'm not looking forward to airline or border processing, but we'll see.

The CBC article that we're discussing gets it right and wrong at different points in the text. The headline says "citizens", the text correctly says "residents", but a lot of the focus is on the loss of value of the passport despite that not being the operative criterion. An Australian living in the US is barred from most European tourism right now, just like an American living in Australia isn't.

There are different kinds of tourists as well. Shuffling hoards of cruise ship passengers out on a day trip to snap their Instagram selfies with a few landmarks and buy some mass-produced tchotchkes from the gift shops before returning to the ship for dinner has a massive impact on quality of living for locals (and even other higher value, lower impact tourists) while doing very little for the local economy.

I really hope when this is over we see a global end to the bargain mass tourism that's been causing so much damage to cities around the world in recent years.

As an American living overseas I've come to this realization: If Americans cannot respect the rules of their homeland in the language they understand, how can they be expected to elsewhere?

Outside the USA, the opinion of the USA is not great [0] right now and it seems unlikely these bans will go away. It sucks for those of us who are doing our parts to flatten the curve and prevent overwhelming the medical systems.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/world/europe/Ireland-amer...

I think it's a huge mistake to assume that the people that, say, refuse to believe in science and/or effectiveness of wearing masks are the same people that are traveling internationally. Only ~45% of Americans even have a passport and most will never leave their home state. I'm going to go out on a limb and say those who think the US is the greatest place on Earth and have no desire to step foot outside of it to test that theory don't have the best intentions.

You're probably right. More so it seems to me that Americans are easy punching bags to ignore local domestic stupidity. From everything I've seen the 5G causes corona virus folks are largely not from America, but in online conversation they seem to be swept under the rug.

> the opinion of the USA is not great right now

The "opinion" of the USA has never been great, ever since our country was founded. And yet we're the only ones everyone talks about. And our culture and policies and businesses and finances permeate the world. And people are literally dying trying to get in. And then we need to save the world from one of their crazy dictators and the cycle restarts all over again.

I've noticed this too. Currently visiting Canada and I'd say 70% of the national news coverage is the US which I found really weird. Is there not enough going on in Canada or other parts of the world?

And the best part is the Canadian PM is embroiled in a big scandal, but it's getting less coverage than Covid in the US.

Oh and this article is a fantastic example of that. Why would the CBC decide this is a topic worth writing about?

Its a population issue. the US is very close culturally, and has a overwhelmingly larger population. California alone has more people the the entity of Canada.

Completely understand that the US is more relevant to Canada than say European countries, but I guess the coverage is way more than I would expect.

I could see covering the major news stories out of the US, but seems to go far beyond that. If you watched the first 20 min of a 30 min national Canadian news show, I'd argue you'd have a hard time telling it apart from US national news shows.

And to be honest, I think it would be great if Canada covered other important international news out of Asia or Europe.

Just my two cents.

hell I wish US news covered more international news

When was the last time we "saved the world"? When we invaded Iraq? Vietnam? Assassinated the the democratically elected leaders of Iran, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile?

Seems to me that the world would prefer less "saving the world" on the US's behalf.

I think it was when we over-through democratically elected governments to save the world from marginally more expensive Bananas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...

What do you mean by "Respect the rules of their homeland?" You understand that rules regarding mask wearing are generally decided at the company/institution level. The local governments gives recommendations, but don't generally enforce them. There's no federal mandated law that everyone needs to adhere to.

Additionally, the majority of people in the US that travel overseas are likely to be much more cultured and concerned about how they are perceived in a foreign nation than our local Walmart population. An uneducated Karen wearing a Nazi mask ranting about her god given right to not wear a mask is not indicative of the type of person from the US that will be visiting culturally significant sites of Italy.

>Additionally, the majority of people in the US that travel overseas are likely to be much more cultured and concerned about how they are perceived in a foreign nation than our local Walmart population. An uneducated Karen wearing a Nazi mask ranting about her god given right to not wear a mask is not indicative of the type of person from the US that will be visiting culturally significant sites of Italy.

Would really, really like to emphasize this. I can't count the number of times I was hit with a "Wow, you are nothing like the Americans I read about in the news" internationally. General perception of the US is bad but for the most part, the people that are desperate to explore the world aren't to blame for it. Unfortunately those who are to blame for it will never cross paths with the people who are disgusted with them in other countries.

>As an American...

>If Americans cannot respect...

>It sucks for those of us...

Who are you talking about here? You?

The fatality rate from COVID-19 in the US is still well below many European countries.

That's ambiguous, and unwise to be saying now in any case.

The cumulative number of deaths per million citizens is still lower than a bunch of countries in Europe, but every day the US has 10 to 100 times the number of covid deaths as one of those countries. Double or quadruple all of Europe together.

So it seems likely the US will overtake them. My (somewhat simplistic) extrapolation suggests about 4 months to match Belgium.

How are fatality rates ambiguous?

There is also the fact that different countries are using different methodologies to count COVID-19 deaths, with the US having one of the most liberal definitions (anyone that had COVID-19 at the time of death is counted, whether or not the actual death can be directly traced back to COVID-19). Many nations are not using this broad-stroke method of counting COVID-19 deaths.

The US fatality rate needs to double (from 453/M to 853/M) in order to match Belgium. The trends are definitely not indicating that this will be likely. The current 30/day trend would need to continue for an additional 160 days uninterrupted in order to match Belgium, and that does not seem likely given the data we've seen anywhere in the world (the majority of which has significantly less medical capacity than the US).

>respect the rules of their homeland

I don't think the problem is refusing to follow the rules, so much as electing people who won't even make them.

> Americans used to have one of the most prized passports in the world, considered a golden ticket to wealth, travel and opportunity.

What? This is not at all true. Maybe that's a belief that many Americans have, but the US passport is not one of the most prized passports in the world, there are about 30 other country's passport I'd rather have before having a US one, if you're talking about getting access to other countries with/without requiring a visa. A quick check of any of the "passport indexes" (Henley Passport Index, Arton Capital Passport Index) will show you that the US passport is fairly low ranked compared to the top ones.

Hard to take the rest of the article serious when it starts out with a serious flaw in the reasoning.

Used to. Like 30-40 years ago.

No, the article is mentioning that the "downfall" is because of "the onset of COVID-19", mentioned later in the article. Although 30-40 years ago is probably closer to when the US passport lost its power in reality.

I would put it at pre-Korean war. So, about 70 years ago.

>but the US passport is not one of the most prized passports in the world

Henley Passport Index ranks the US at #7, by a reasonable definition of "one of the most prized", I'd say #7 counts.

#1 Japan only has access to 6 more countries visa free than the US does.

Edit: The US was ranked #1 in 2006, went down to #7 by 2010, and then was back up to #1 in 2014. We're talking swinging between 185 countries with visa free access and 191 countries here, so the top 10 positions change frequently.

To add to this, most of the additional countries aren't really umm... worth traveling to, at least for most people. I compared against germany, and the additional countries are:

    Myanmar
    Pakistan
    Vietnam
    Venezuela
    Iran
    Turkey

I'm sure those countries have interesting places to go to and the people there are nice, but they're not exactly on the top of most tourists' list when it comes to destinations.

edit: not sure what the downvotes are about. maybe hn thinks that all countries are equal, and thinking otherwise is racist?

According to this list, Turkey ranks 6th in tourist destinations worldwide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings#Most_vi...

I think the operative metric is how it would rank for US passport holders in a world where the us passport was entirely unrestricted. I.e. how much is the typical US passport holder losing out compared to their ideal preferences. I think the parent's point is accurate by that metric. I doubt that many Americans urgently desire to travel there compared to most other places. I would actually quibble more with Vietnam -- it seems like a fantastic tourist destination, similar in many respects to Thailand.

gruez said the countries on the list are “not worth travelling to“ and “not exactly on the top of most tourists’ list”, but if Turkey is the 6th most popular tourist destination in the world that’s obviously not true

I agree that person's way of expressing their opinion was inelegant. But I'm trying to cut through to something true that they might have meant by what they said.

>gruez said the countries on the list are “not worth travelling to“

correction: "most of the countries", and "at least for most people". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23977923

Vietnam and Turkey are actually very nice.

Maybe you should examine your assumptions.

Turkey is a very popular destination for Danish people.

I, for one, would very much like to visit Venezuela and Vietnam.

Turkey is a pretty popular tourist destination - good climate and one of the worlds most ancient civilizations.

> To add to this, most of the additional countries aren't really umm... worth traveling to, at least for most people.

This is a quite unfortunate attitude to have. Every country I've been to has something to offer, has helped me gain perspective and empathy with other people and has been "worth" traveling to.

I feel like you fixated on that part of the sentence and ignored the first part:

>I'm sure those countries have interesting places to go to and the people there are nice

The reality is that for most people, their time and money budgets are constrained, and they're optimizing for more than just "gaining perspective and empathy" (eg. they might just want to party/relax). As such, those countries are low on most people's list.

> they're not exactly on the top of most tourists' list

Turkey is the #6 most visited country in the world, and Vietnam is also a popular tourist destination (#27 on the first list I found).

I'm not going to argue with most of that list but Vietnam is absolutely a growing tourist destination, with over 18 million international visitors in 2019[1] and nearly beating India in 2018[2].

It is particularly popular with Chinese visitors lately but also historically with the "Gap Year" backpackers from Europe who travel around Asia.

Incidentally it is a beautiful and incredibly friendly country and I highly recommend it.

[1] http7 s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Vietnam#Tourism_statistics

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings

Vietnam and Turkey are not worthwhile? And then goes the cliché about Americans...

Pakistan was Condé Nast Traveller's best holiday destination for 2020.

Source: https://www.cntraveller.com/gallery/best-holiday-destination...

Vietnam and Turkey has tons of tourism.

> not sure what the downvotes are about. maybe hn thinks that all countries are equal, and thinking otherwise is racist?

Downvotes are because you assumed certain countries are "not worth traveling to", when some of them consistently rank as fairly popular tourist destinations.

I said most of the countries, not all of them. In particular, Pakistan, Venezuela, Iran have "Reconsider Travel" or "Do Not Travel" on the state dept's website. Myanmar has "exercise caution" advisory, with certain regions having civil unrest.

I'd love to travel to Pasargadae and Persepolis in Iran and Çatalhöyük, Ḫattuša, and the Hagia Sophia in Turkey. In fact, I'm likely to travel to Turkey when this pandemic is over and Iran if relations ever improve to the point where my American passport doesn't paint a target on my back.

American here, I've been to a number of the countries on that list that you say are not "worth traveling to," along with many other countries that you think are probably worth traveling to. I've really enjoyed the ones to which I've traveled and plan to go back. I won't pile on with the top tourist destinations, but check out the other responses for those, I'm just providing an anecdotal response from a tech worker.

> edit: not sure what the downvotes are about. maybe hn thinks that all countries are equal, and thinking otherwise is racist?

Your edit is bad by the way and a gross mischaracterization.

>American here, I've been to a number of the countries on that list that you say are not "worth traveling to,"

>Your edit is bad by the way and a gross mischaracterization.

Ironically your comment is also a mischaracterization. I never claimed that all of the countries on the list weren't worth going to. In addition, in the edit I was posing a question rather than making a statement.

> most of the additional countries aren't really umm... worth traveling to

> not sure what the downvotes are about. maybe hn thinks that all countries are equal, and thinking otherwise is racist?

You dismiss these countries as not worth traveling to, and seriously can't comprehend why you were downvoted? Wow some people just completely lack awareness.

Rudeness of such a statement aside, I've been to Vietnam and Turkey and they are fantastic countries. I would absolutely love to visit Myanmar and Iran as I've heard fantastic things. I've heard good things about Pakistan as well. Venezuela of course is unfortunately dangerous to travel to right now, but it is a beautiful country.

In any case, dismissing a country you know nothing about as "not worth traveling to" is rude and uncultured at best.

Yeah, "Rank Group" #7 but actual position 17, so not even in the top ten. I'd say "one of the most prized" should at least be in the top ten, if not in the top three, to actually be "most prized".

But since we don't agree on that, I guess agree to disagree.

And we should not underestimate the amount of trouble US citizens have due to FATCA, etc.

In Europe, many banks and insurers will turn them down as customers.

Indeed, that even impacts French citizens who were born in the US but have never been there since then. And apparently it's a huge pain in the ass.

Out of 200 odd passports you could have, top 10% is definitely a reasonable definition of most prized. Particularly when the difference is so insignificant.

The vehemence of your disagreement in the original post vastly exceeds what one would expect if you were merely stating that you don't think that one of the most prized should only mean top 10.

The US has 15 countries head of it. Most by 1 or 2 countries. Unless you specifically want to visit one of those 1 or 2 countries the difference is irrelevant. Compared to Sweden the US misses out on Vietnam and Turkey, but gains access to Mongolia.

These numbers could change at any time. So basing your passport decision on such a minute and frequently changing number is ridiculous.

By the way the US is actively working to develop a better relationship with Vietnam--my brother went there on a diplomatic/military relations visit a few years ago, and 90% of Vietnamese have a positive view of the US. It's very likely that sometime in the next year we gain Visa free access.

All countries with the same number of visa-free access get the same rank group in Henley index, so actual position is irrelevant.

If you check the webpage it shows South Korea above Germany, if you download the pdf on the webpage it shows Germany above South Korea. But in reality doesn't matter since it's a tie with both being in the same rank group.

Again, you and OP seem to be talking about 2 different time periods. What does the historical (OPs time frame) rather than the present (your time frame) look like in terms of passport position? What there a time since 1776 (or whenever passports became a thing) that the US passport was in the top 10?

> What there a time since 1776 (or whenever passports became a thing) that the US passport was in the top 10?

Yes in 2006 and 2014 it was #1. The numbers fluctuate every year because the difference between #1 and #20 is only 7 countries.

It's a shame hacker news has gotten this political as of late. They're likely going to have to go with the lock comments strategy much of reddit has to do, or just allow each thread to blow up into wild America hate like this.

6 less countries than the number one country, and you get these comments about how "the US hasn't been a sought after passport for years" when the US was number one just 6 years ago, and even now it's a better passport than 170 countries, with the ones you can't get into basically rubber stamps if you do apply.

And the full extent of it isn't obvious, because I've seen a lot of intensely political submissions get hundreds of upvotes flung at them before they're flagged within the hour. A lot of normally reasonable people have simply decided that they're cool with flamebait and chucking insults. And I'm not sure whether moderators can maintain a good intellectual environment when the userbase is willing to tolerate a bad one.

You have not seen the difference in how bureaucratic problems are solved with US passport and any other.

Hey there internet stranger, rather than assuming how other strangers life are, why don't you ask?

I do know how bureaucratic issues are handled (with my own experience) by using three different passport at different times of my life, one of them being with a US passport.

Is there anything in particular you're thinking about that I can help share my experience regarding?

You are welcome to go forward and share any relevant experience

I'm not American but you're off-base here. Sure, if you already have another western passport an American passport may not buy you much. But if you go to Asia or Africa, you'll find that an American passport is still the Holy Grail; certainly "one of the most prized" as the article says.

And, BTW, if you're poor (like most of the world!), the mobility offered by a passport matters little in the short term; it's the economic mobility a new nationality gives you.

Besides, those passport indexes are ridiculous -- they rank them by number of countries you can access. But let's be real -- would you prefer an Emerati passport to an American one because you get a visa-on-arrival in Liberia or similar places? Insane.

Africa and Asia are not countries. As I understand it, American tourists in Egypt are treated like shit, but Italians are welcomed with open arms. Source: a friend who holds both passports (born in US to Italian citizens) whose family vacations in Egypt.

Also, the US is one of the few countries where long-term minded people can move, have a kid, and then their kid will have a US passport. That is not true for most of the world, and is certainly not true for other "prized passports".

Isn't the US the country that has the most immigrants per year?

https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/wmr_2020.pdf

"The most striking feature of the main migration corridors within and from the region (figure 22 is the dominance of the United States as the main country of destination. Most of the corridors in 2019 were to the United States,"

Most immigrants don't know or care about things like Henley Passport Index.

Access to all countries are weighted equally in these passport indexes. So I would say they are flawed.

I would prefer a passport that gives me access to say Switzerland rather than North Korea (but they will count same in all the passport indices).

These indices are vanity numbers (just like number of lines of code or number of papers published for an academic)

Also – doesn’t the US passport mean you have to pay (or at least declare) taxes on your non-US income back to the IRS? That doesn’t seem desirable.

An EU passport would vastly outrank the US passport in terms of economic opportunity because it gives you the right to live and work anywhere in the EU without a visa or much paperwork.

Only after the first $100,000. I don't see a big problem with this either.

> An EU passport would vastly outrank the US passport in terms of economic opportunity

Extremely debatable, even more so with using the term "vastly".

Come to live in Switzerland and then you will understand why the US embassy here has the highest US citizenship renunciation in the world...

Switzerland isn't part of the EU.

yes but Switzerland has freedom of movement with EU, meaning that EU passport holder can freely settle in CH or Swiss passport holder in EU...

I'm not sure what that metric is supposed to prove? That Switzerland has a higher number of rich US expats who want to avoid paying US taxes than other countries do?

It's very difficult to get Swiss citizenship in the first place, so it makes sense that it's mostly well off US citizens who are able to get Swiss citizenship, and are thus able to renounce their US citizenship.

@learc83 it just shows that when you have a dual citizenship (US- CH or European one) the IRS issue is a real problem in a country where the median salary is just under 85k$ per year (no need to be a rich guy). The point is a US passport is great to live in the US, that's it. (personally know 3 ex US citizen that where tired to pay a US accountant when they already had to go through Swiss tax system).

>The point is a US passport is great to live in the US, that's it.

Yes assuming you never want to work or live in the US, compared to a Swiss passport and a handful of other passports that's true. Compared to 90% of countries on the planet, it's not true.

>the IRS issue is a real problem in a country where the median salary is just under 85k$ per year (no need to be a rich guy).

How many dual US and Swiss citizens are making under under or anywhere near the median income? It's very hard to migrate to Switzerland, so my guess is not many.

A median is a median... and if you are a married couple very easily. But it is also the case if you have a EU-US dual citizenship. So in fact that's a lot of person. Also it's not that complicated to migrate to Switzerland is you are an American with a EU passport (get an Italian passport if one of your grand-parents was Italian and bingo), and that's the case of a lot of people.

In Switzerland every year between 500-700 people renounce their US citizenship... so at least a few.

>A median is a median

>in a country where the median salary is just under 85k$ per year

If $85k is the median salary for the country, that says nothing about the median salary of US expats in the country.

> But it is also the case if you have a EU-US dual citizenship

How is that relevant when we were taking about people with US and Swiss citizenship?

>Also it's not that complicated to migrate to Switzerland is you are an American with a EU passport (get an Italian passport if one of your grand-parents was Italian and bingo),

It's not that hard, you just need to have an Italian Grandparent, go through the process (which can take years depending on where you live), move to Switzerland, find a job, then live there for 10 years.

>How is that relevant when we were taking about people with US and Swiss citizenship?

It is relevant because if you are for instance a FR-US dual citizen (because for instance you were born in the US while your parents were working there as an expat for a few years), you can freely settle in Switzerland (CH-EU free movement agreement). In any cases you have to do your IRS stuff whatever the amount you are earning so this is already a problem and if you work in IT you salary will easily get over 100k which potentially trigger amount to pay (even with the high tax rate of CH). My colleague in front of me, was a US citizen because he was in this exact situation, and was tired of all the paperwork required by his US citizenship (and the fact that all the banks were considering him as a liability). So if you don't intend to live in the US, having a US citizenship is a problem for a lot of people, and if you have to pay for it, it becomes a burden (including all UE/CH-US dual citizen living in CH).

Anyway all of this to say that about 25% of the worldwide US renunciation are taking place in CH, so this figure alone prove that this is a problem in this country.

My American colleagues living in London tend to disagree with you. It’s easy to accept the additional taxation when it’s not happening to you. When Uncle Sam is picking your pocket and giving little back in return, it’s a different story.

So surely you sympathize with those living in the U.S. who feel the same way?

I do sympathise with people who are unhappy about being taxed by a government of a country they do not live in.

I do not sympathise with people who are unhappy about being taxed by the government of the country they do live in.

EDIT: That's not to say I love the rate at which I get taxed at, but everyone around you is subject to the same rules, and so you're preaching (complaining) to the choir.

Immigrants suffering double taxation, both by the nation they live in, and the nation they're a citizen of, strikes me as massively unfair by comparison.

I think many people would argue they are paying taxes and not getting much in return.

There are probably very few people immigrants making over $100,000 as well. It probably keeps people from making a bunch of money off of US-based businesses and then skating off to Vietnam or something.

But this introduces a huge pain and expense of preparing US taxes every year even if you live abroad and don't step foot on US soil. Additionally, tons of foreign banks won't let you set up accounts even if you live in their country due to FATCA reporting requirements for US citizens.

Finally, on a more conceptual level, is it fair that US citizens have to pay taxes where they get nothing in return? Especially when no other developed country has citizenship-based taxation?

If a US citizen gets nothing in return for their taxes why would anyone want the citizenship?

> "An EU passport would vastly outrank the US passport in terms of economic opportunity"

EU GDP: $18.29 Trillion

US GDP: $20.54 Trillion

And that's before factoring in per capita differences, which tip the scales even farther to the US.

Moving around the EU is now as easy as moving around the US, so congrats I guess?

> Americans used to have

> the US passport is not

You and the comment you are replying to seem to be discussing two different time periods, perhaps separated by a century or more.

I'd hardly call visa-free access to 6 fewer countries (185 vs 191) as "fairly low ranking".

I actually went through the list to see what the differences were in terms of access between Japan (the top ranking passport right now) and the US passport. These are ignoring any COVID related temporary closures.

A Japanese passport will get you into the following countries visa-free that the US passport won't:

- China

- India

- Myanmar

- Pakistan

- Vietnam

- Suriname

- Venezuela

- Azerbaijan

- Iran

- Turkey

A US passport will get you into the following countries visa-free that the Japanese passport won't:

- Burkina Faso

- Central African Republic

To be honest, nearly all of the above make sense

- US-China relations are bad

- The US middle-eastern wars have pissed off:

  - Pakistan

  - Azerbaijan

  - Iran

  - Turkey

- The US currently has sanctions against Venezuela

I am a little surprised about India, Myanmar, Suriname, and Vietnam. However, it doesn't appear that European passports will get you into India visa-free either.

>US-China relations are bad

That's true although going back over 10 years (and I'm sure before) at least getting a Chinese business visa has been a bit of a pain--not really difficult but a bunch of paperwork. On the plus side, as of a few years ago, you could get a 10-year visa.

And India was just a bureaucratic mess. I ended up canceling two different business trips to India because I couldn't get a visa in the necessary window. My understanding is that in normal now there's visa on arrival.

This is just a matter of time. Almost all countries actually want US citizens to come there, for tourism purposes, due to their high spend potential (relative to other countries).

This might not change in the way it sounds like you're expecting..

> Almost all countries actually want US citizens to come there, for tourism purposes

Please do provide evidence of this. Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from, as long as they spend money and don't ruin stuff.

Americans, along with the British and the French, seems to be the groups that most people complained about when it comes to groups vacationing in Europe.

Edit: lot's of people replying, which is great. But none of providing evidence, which is explicitly requested in this comment. Would love to see some hard facts rather than people's anecdotes.

They don’t care where the tourists come from but they still want a healthy number of tourists to keep the industry going. Americans form a sizeable block of that.

And yes, plenty of people complain about American tourists. Frankly with good reason. But it all comes down to money.

Obviously most business owners just want tourists to come and spend money, regardless of where they come from. I believe what the above commenter is saying is that American tourists tend to spend the most, either because America has the most people that can afford to travel, or because they spend the most per person. I don't find that unreasonable.

> Please do provide evidence of this. Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from, as long as they spend money and don't ruin stuff.

There are a lot of Americans, they have a lot of money to spend and they like to spend money on travel. Isn't this sort of a self-refuting point?

I suspect people complain about the most common tourists, since they'll be the most visible.

> Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from, as long as they spend money and don't ruin stuff.

Right, but American tourists make up a significant portion of tourist spending. Ergo, if you want tourist money, you want American tourists. Not necessarily more or less than other types of tourists, but that's not important.

Americans are well known for tipping astronomical amounts in relation to most European countries. No doubt due to their crazy social construct of paying for a service and paying the person providing a service separately, which is pretty foreign in most European nations.

> seems to be the groups that most people complained about

Absolutely not - the group I hear the most complaints about are chinese tourists. Americans mostly have a reputation for being overly friendly to strangers here.

> Americans, along with the British and the French, seems to be the groups that most people complained about when it comes to groups vacationing in Europe.

Citizens might complain due to the personal habits and practices of individual tourists, but bureaucrats that oversee the tourism industry (in relation to border entry) will have views based on which tourist qualities most positively impact the industry's income.

That might be a Europe specific thing. A lot of the parts of the world I've seen like US tourists because they have a culture of tipping generously, which is not always the case for Europeans.

" Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from,"

When 50% of your tourists are absent, because Americans are not allowed in, and you're out of business ... 'you care where they come from'.

This is bad for everyone and it's not just tourism.

> Please do provide evidence of this.

Here you go: https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-tourist-hot-spots-suffe...

I submitted this article to HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23763588

>Americans, along with the British and the French, seems to be the groups that most people complained about when it comes to groups vacationing in Europe.

What's « Europe » ? Different places have very different tourist demographics. The perception of the British in my part of France (we tend to get wealthy, French-speaking types) is very different to that in Amsterdam or Mallorca for example (where the « lads » got touring).

And I can guaranty you that the most universally hated place of origin for tourists across Europe as a whole is China.

Americans are just known for smiling like idiots.

If you are ignorant it is not on everyone else to bring you upto speed. There have been several articles on this already. Here is something you should try. Next time, goto a tourist hotspot such as Iceland or Venice and ask the locals there - which country citizens do they like the most. And they will tell you straight.

Agree. Those don't think so haven't travelled to luxury destinations overseas. It's majority Americans and Chinese. There are whole industries depending on those two cohorts.

What do you consider luxury destinations? It’s a highly subjective description, so if you can elaborate it’ll aide understanding.

If this were the only criteria, then Chinese passports would be accepted visa-free in a lot more countries than they currently are. Not saying that travel bans will remain in place once the current pandemic ends (which might take a while still), but "high spend potential" is not the sole determinant for this kind of polices when outside of a worldwide health emergency.

At least a while ago I thought the flow of Chinese tourists was largely controlled by China... not outside restrictions.

As I understood it China was fairly restrictive on who / how many of their own people could leave China for where as a tourist.

Is that not the case anymore.

Independently of that, an exceedingly large number of countries require visas from Chinese citizens. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Chines...

This squares ok with geopolitical reasons, but not economic ones (although they certainly influence that map now and in the future).

I wonder if it is a tit for tat type thing for other folks going to China?

It's hard to know. It's extra hard to know on outgoing as what I heard a while ago from someone from China (hard to know if they were really authoritative) was even if you qualified to go someplace else from inside China... your odds of approval was somewhat random / would ebb and flow.

Its definitely partially a tit for tat bargaining thing. Just like the EU was recently looking at doing an ESTA-lite for US

Here in the UK, tourists from China are or are becoming more important than American tourist now.

The cost of restarting a full blow epidemic in Europe is much higher than the lost tourism money. I doubt we'll see americans anywhere before they get their situation under control.

There are travel restrictions all over the world currently due to the COVID-19 situation. People are not allowed to travel from one city to another in the same country without proper documents. Lots of countries are not even allowing international flights at this point. To tie this in just with US passport is simply politically motivated.

It is the mix of current US sentiments, its leadership combined with the total chaos going on in this country - journalists are doing a disservice by perpetuating and provoking tribal instincts of nationalism. They're hyping up the downfall of the United States and hoping to get more clicks.

Folks who are non-Americans are getting a spicy juicy dose of some anti-US sentiments which is being drank in large quantities overseas.

What a sad time.

There's a worldwide pandemic going on, no one currently has access to "most of the world". Not sure the point of spinning this as a U.S. citizen specific issue...I guess Canadian journalists just can't resist

I don't think losing access to most of the world is a permanent thing. It's purely because of the virus and nothing else which is self inflicted. The foreign policy and all around lack of empathy shown by the WH will all pass.

As a country though, the US has become the beacon of anti-science nut jobs starting from the president. For the leading tech country in the world, it's jarring how anti-science it is. The whole world seems to have gotten a grip on the situation except the US, which is still consumed with frivolous things like throwing the first pitch at the Yankees game , just because he is jealous of Dr.Fauci.

Most Americans don't even realize they're trapped in their own country now. You can't leave even if you want to.

A lot of Americans don’t leave the country anyway, only 42% have passports.

I actually don’t think that’s as damning as many make it out to be: foreign vacations are expensive and the US provides an incredible variety of vacation spots at a much more affordable price. It’s just a shame there isn’t as much exposure to different cultures on those trips.

Most Americans don't travel abroad. Those that are accustomed to frequent travel for business or leisure are acutely aware of the current situation because it's already blown up their year.

Most Americans wouldn't get on an airplane right now if you paid them. If I go on a vacation this year, it'll be in a car with my family, not in a cramped aluminum tube sharing infected air with hundreds of strangers.

Most Americans just don't tremendously care. I wouldn't travel internationally right now even if I could; look at what happened to the British tourists in Spain, who got a surprise 2 week quarantine order dropped on them.

Mostly because they're not trapped in their on country. US passports grant access most places still... maybe not as many as before, but much of the world is / will still be open to them.

What does it even mean to be "trapped" in America? It's the third largest country in the world by landmass. It takes three to five days to drive across the country. How can you be trapped in a country that is so large, a single human can barely comprehend it?

"Your cage is so large... what are you even complaining about..." (laughs in freedom vouchers)

This is a gross overstatement of the current situation. I have family who work at international airports and a large portion of travel is still to destinations outside the country. Besides, most Americans don't want to travel right now. Passenger aircraft are running at a fraction of their normal capacity - even after adjusting for the pandemic. There are few reasons to travel right now when it comes to business or vacation.

I just flew from JFK -> LHR via Dublin last week. Quarantine for two weeks, and I could enter Germany as per the UK GOV:

"In line with the European Commission recommendation, from 2 July Germany is gradually lifting restrictions on entry from third states where the COVID-19 epidemiological situation is improving. The rules concern travellers’ place of immediate prior stay, not their nationality."

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/germany/entry-requi...

(I'm not going to leave the UK or even the flat I'm in for the matter). Travel in COVID Era is stressful, but once you are out of the US "illness free" for two weeks, it seems like a US citizen wouldn't be barred.

I think they go by your current permanent residence or citizenship, not which country you came from last, otherwise it would be fairly easy to get into the EU just by quarantining in stopover country.

According to this table of "countries that travel the most" Americans will definitely notice: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-whose-citizens...

I understand in the abstract sense not being able to leave is a trapping, but I don't understand how that is a bad thing except in the abstract.

This type of news may go stale very quickly... Yes pandemic has instantly created myriad set of obstacles to travel and migration around the world.

Maybe some of these restrictions will take enough time to be lifted... But, does anyone believe that most of the world will suddenly reject American money (for business and leisure) for long term?

I mean, just look at the "in-fight" happening in Europe where southern countries want northern tourists despite pandemic status...

If it makes anyone feel better, most U.S. citizens have _never_ had access to any part of the world because they've been too busy barely making ends meet working dead-end jobs with no healthcare or vacations.

So, in the grand scheme of things, is it really so terrible if the middle echelons feel a little squeeze as well as a result of political malfeasance from the people that they (collectively, not individually) put into power?

Yeah this probably seems like a bigger deal to folks who cross international borders (or multiple) regularly.

Most Americans do not do that, I wonder what % ever cross an international border... ?

I hear what you're saying but American's travel more, and spend more on travel than almost any other nation (I just looked it up, URL is in another comment)

America is a very large nation, and it has more people in it than almost any other. It's also, as an aggregate average, wealthier than almost any other nation.

And at the same time, most people inside it are not individually wealthy enough to thrive inside it to the extent where they could fly overseas for a while.

Per https://www.forbes.com/sites/lealane/2019/05/02/percentage-o...

As many as 13 percent say they have never flown in an airplane.

Forty percent of those questioned said they’ve never left the country.

Over half of respondents have never owned a passport.

And that's even with lumping Mexico/Canada into the same group as other continents when they are very dissimilar in terms of travel feasibility. Mexico and Canada get 55% of all international travel from the US.

Is that better than an impoverished nation? Absolutely. Does one typically classify the US as an impoverished nation? Not typically.

The Forbes article, and the data it's based off isn't insightful unless we have something to compare. How much do citizens of other nations travel from region to region within their own country? What about beyond the countries that immediately border their own?

If the context is just America yes, you can make the assertion that your typical American doesn't, or can't travel as often as they'd like internationally. However in the context of this discussion I asserted that American's will notice a travel ban, because compared to the rest of the world they travel a lot.

> I asserted that American's will notice a travel ban

A very small percentage of Americans will notice an overseas travel ban right now, given that:

1. Only 20-30% of US citizens have _ever_in_their_lives_ traveled outside of North America. (The percentage of people who have ever left the country X the percentage of non-Mexico/Canada international travel.)

2. There's a global pandemic that the US isn't handling well. People in group 1 are not rushing to rub elbows with strangers in airplanes right now.

The only countries that we can unqualifiedly say that "Americans" _may_ notice right now are Canada and Mexico (by car, flying still allowed).

US Citizenship may have once been a prestigous thing, but now it's met with a sort of elitism that suggests Americans are inferior (stupid, boorish, backward etc). In my experience living here the differences between Canada & the US are grossly exaggerated and many countries respect Canada much more.

I think the well calibrated view would give America more credit for the role it's played/playing globally.

I'm currently trapped in the U.S. waiting for my passport renewal, which currently takes 3-4 months. Since you have to mail in your existing passport to get your passport renewed, I literally have no passport until the new one arrives in the mail. People who applied for their new passports in March are only now getting their new passports in the mail today.

I know someone will say "oh you shouldn't be traveling anyways". I don't live in the U.S. anymore, I live abroad. I only returned to the U.S. because I had hit my visa limit abroad, and thought I could get my passport renewed within a reasonable time frame in the U.S. (max 1 month). How stupid of me to assume my country took passport processing seriously and with any sense of urgency.

What is a theoretical maximum time frame for Europe to ban visitors from the US? It seems like the allure of tourists dollars will likely trump public health concerns at some point. Does anyone see this lasting for another year or longer?

The whole backwards part about this is that the Schengen travel restrictions are still in place.

So somebody who has visited a Schengen country even with under 10 covid cases a week (like most Nordics) can't travel directly to the US.

They have to fly to a country like Mexico or Canada (which are both still battling covid) and then enter the border after 14 days.

Oh BUT if you're a US citizen or with a resident visa, you can enter from wherever.

Oh AND if you're a student with in person classes, you can enter.

But me with a house and a job and a visa, can't enter.

How the fuck can this happen?

Full headline is better:

"U.S. citizens no longer have access to most of the world — the global South never had it"

IMO it's temporary. (IMHO!) The population of America is very large, and it's hard for the government to control all the idiots(a good percentage of the population?) who live in it, and also it's hard for the government to be organized themselves because they're busy fighting for power and blaming each other. Great country, but COVID exposed some of the weaknesses.

Does anyone know:

How difficult is it for a Sri Lankan citizen to get a temporary visa to come to a developed nation (e.g. for vacation or a business trip)?

What is the reasoning for this situation? Other than edge cases where a nation is a security risk or where illegal immigration is a concern what does democratic a country gain by keeping visitors out?

>How difficult is it for a Sri Lankan citizen to get a temporary passport to come to a developed nation (e.g. for vacation or a business trip)?

It's called a visa, not a temporary passport. I have friends with weak passports who were Canadian Permanent Residents apply for a visitor visa for the US. They applied 3 months before their intended date of visit (for a conference). The visa was approved 1.5 years after the conference had ended. Another friend in a similar situation had his visa application in process for ~2 years, at which point Trump enacted his travel ban for certain nationalities, including his, so his application was denied after 2 years.

In some countries, even booking an interview appointment with the consulate to apply for a visa can take months and maybe more than a year. Most people don't bother with international travel, because it is far too arduous and expensive to get a visa.

I can speak from my experience as a Salvadoran/Latin American where visa restrictions affect Northbound travel.

* Take El Salvador and Mexico:

They are two countries that are close to each other, they also share language and have historical events in common. It is just a 1.5 hour flight from San Salvador to Mexico City, or a 7 hour drive from border to border.

If someone from El Salvador wants to travel to Mexico for business purposes or tourism, and they would be required to have a US/EU visa or do the following:

Estimated time required | Task

30 min | Make an appointment (next available slot is in three months)

??? | Have a monthly income higher than 100 days of the mexican capital. This excludes most of Salvadorans, I'd have to check the Labour Ministry for the statistics though.

1 hour | Research mexican minimum wages, convert currency and evaluate if you can apply.

1/2 day | Proof of income signed by the manager /HR / accountant of the company

1/2 day | Notarized copy of the Tax ID and National ID of the signee of the proof of income letter

1/2 day | Notarized copu of the Tax ID and terms of incorporation of the company

2-4 hrs | Account statements of the past six months in official bank letterheard, in a letter format, addressed to the Mexican embassy.

2 hrs | Photo taken according to the specifications in a photo studio.

4 hrs | Hotel / airplane reservations

3 months | Wait for appointment

1hr-6hr | Drive to the Embassy in the capital.

1/2 day | Day of appointment.

5 min | Interview/Aprpoval/Rejection

1 day | Wait for passport to be handed in

Visa price: It's actually free :)

Other circumstances can cause more paperwork: If company or family members is paying your expenses, or if a Mexican company is inviting you.

El Salvador is around haldway on the Passport rankings, and this is not the most complicated case. There is a Mexican Embassy in El Salvador, no translations or apostilles are needed for documentation, and the country is small enough to allow for same day travel to the embassy.

Somtimes it requires travelling to another country for the visa interview, mailing your passport and having no passport in the meantime, or to have biometrics taken in a third country (!)

Some countries don't ask for a local visa if the traveller has a US/EU visa. Like Salvadorans don't need a Mexican Visa if they have a US/EU visa. Or Nicaraguans to Costa Rica. Or Ecuadorians to El Salvador.

Most illegal immigration (US anyway) are people that overstay legally obtained non-immigrant visas.

Thus, the main reason it is difficult for people from some poor countries to get non-immigrant visas to rich countries, is that the rich countries want reasonable assurances that the applicant intends to return home rather than overstay the visa.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/re...

I am a Sri Lankan, and as far as I know only developed nation that allow visa free travel for Sri Lankans is Singapore. If you want to visit any other developed nation, you have to show you have enough funds (or someone else is sponsoring) and have connections to Sri Lanka.

I think one of the why our passport ranks in the bottom was during the Sri Lankan civil war there was lot of refugees from Sri Lanka, so developed countries started to look at every Sri Lankan as potential refugee or asylum seeker. It has been 11 years since the civil war ended, but developed world's treatment remains the same.

The irony is sometimes you will see some European tourists, who had no issues getting visa to Sri Lanka, begging and doing street performance in the streets of Sri Lanka.

It's so weird for me personally because while I have absolutely zero interest in boarding a plane to go anywhere at the moment, there is a weird small feeling of being trapped so to speak. like losing the option (that i wasn't going to use anyway) to pick up and go anywhere i could theoretically want to.

not complaining, just observing a feeling because there are more pressing things for this country and myself at the moment and as the article points out we're now experiencing what it's like for a fairly sizable portion of the world. I guess we are in the middle of reaping what we've sown.

>considered a golden ticket to wealth

The limits on travel are interesting but overstatements like that really trickle into absurdity.

The US's role in the world is changing, but to demonstrate it folks seem to adopt a lot of wonky ideas of what it was.

This clickbait of a title is missing "amidst Coronavirus pandemic"

And if your passport expired during COVID-19, like mine did, you can apparently forget about getting a new one for at least a year.

At first glance, it would appear so but if you check the FAQ where they list the number of current passport renewal applications and how many they get through per week, right now there's about a ~8 week wait. Long, but not a year.

I guess I formed this opinion since I have to apply in person for my childrens' renewals.

Ah yeah, good luck with that. They want nothing to do with in-person renewals right now.

I got mine to travel to the US in the end of March. Yeah...

On the one hand I think "Oh good, all these people who are convinced of the superiority of the USSA will start to get a clue." But, then I remember that these are also the same people who are extremely unlikely to have ever left their hometown, much less traveled to a different country. So this won't phase them at all.

haha damn. I just became a US citizen few months ago after waiting a lifetime in the queue :/ .

Congrats! I'm still waiting for it. No idea when I will get my EAD. Been almost 9 years in US.

Thank you. I got mine after ~18 yrs :)

U.S. citizens != U.S. residents

The bigger problem for US citizens is that US Passport is essentially an IRS trap, no matter where you decide to live.

How does having a passport affect a US citizen's taxes?

In the middle of a pandemic, similar restrictions apply to everyone. These restrictions are generally not based on citizenship but residency. Everybody is encouraged to stay where they are (or were, when it broke out).

US citizens residing abroad are not being treated any worse than they were: it's just more difficult to move from country A to country B anywhere in the world for anybody right now (except within the EU/EEA, which largely reopened). US citizens are not being singled out, and while they're also not being given preferential treatment, it is hard to imagine they would have been had this happened anytime in the past, say 50 years ago. The situation is just largely unprecedented.

It is inaccurate to compare the situation of travellers now and in the past, when travel was much less common and less affordable, and thus the population flows were much smaller: this is the first pandemic of the global era, so of course the restrictions are going to impact more people and be more noticeable than any similar measures implemented in the past. Arguably it has to be so to control the spread of the virus.

On a general note, the US passport was never a great choice for people who mostly live outside the US due to the cumbersome tax regulations one has to endure as part of being a US citizen but, it can be argued, it could remain so precisely due to the power the US enjoys to compel other countries to enforce its laws, as demonstrated with e.g. FATCA [1]. Thus there has always been a steady outflow of millionaires looking for greener pastures. [2]

Separately, the US passport was also never highly-ranked for people who just wanted to travel around as visitors: in that category it is easily outclassed by e.g. Singapore or Japan, which let you visit China or (in the latter case) India visa-free. [3] Still, that was never the reason for it being so prized: the US has likely the best career opportunities in the world, so people want the citizenship and the passport that comes with it to get inside the country, not to stay away from it and go elsewhere. If they do travel abroad however, the US passport still generally affords unrivalled consular protection in most of the world. And nothing really changes in this department just because of the pandemic.

I'm really surprised to see an article like this from what purportedly aspires to be the Canadian BBC. It's really quite poorly-researched for such an alarmist tone.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...

2. https://www.cbsnews.com/media/5-citizens-who-left-the-us-to-...

3. https://www.henleypassportindex.com/

The disconnect between how the world sees the US and how the US sees itself is astounding.

Can't even get into some neighboring states! So much for the 'union'

Do you have a source on that? As far as I'm aware that is illegal. States can require quarantine periods for visitors, but I don't think they can outright ban travel from US citizens/nationals.

A 14-day quarantine upon return effectively bans many people from traveling.

A reasonable argument, but unfortunately using exaggerated words as a rhetorical tactic. It's unreasonable to simply say "you can't get in" or "you're effectively banned from traveling". What you and the grandparent mean is that a two week quarantine makes it impractical or effectively impossible for some people to travel between the states in question. (Assuming this is what the grandparent was referring to, which we still don't know).

I'm not sure that is quite right either. It's not just visitors, anyone traveling to or from the marked region must quarantine. A local citizen returning home must be treated the same as a visitor traveling from another state.

I was speaking specifically about the most stringent rules they can have for visitors, but you are exactly right that the rules apply to everyone and not exclusively visitors.

I don't think it is the case anywhere currently, but earlier on in the pandemic there was at least one place that put up checkpoints and turned away visitors.

Example: https://www.obxtoday.com/coronavirus/updated-dare-county-res...

Just because a government did it doesn't mean it is legal. It seems like that county was quickly sued and had to change its policy.[1][2] I am guessing this restriction wouldn't hold up in court, but you would actually have to get them to court to force them to stop. And the bigger the entity and the more people impacted, the quicker they would end up in court.

[1] - https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article241852551.htm...

[2] - https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article2440336...

Yeah for sure, I was just sharing the example. There's a lot of executive actions testing the bounds of the law currently.

Source? According to https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/travel/state-travel-restr..., it looks like there are quarantine orders, but nothing preventing you from getting in.

What are you referring to? That's a pretty wild thing to just throw out there, considering how unprecedented that would be.

If it makes you feel better, Atlantic provinces in Canada have also put substantial limitations on who can enter from the rest of Canada.

And thank fuck for that. EDIT: Fuzzing or downvoting? Was it the profanity? I do thank fuck for the temporary reduction in incoming vectors during a pandemic.

I haven't heard of this being the case, but assuming for a moment that it is:

This seems like the inevitable consequence of the rhetoric that I've seen on both sides of "if you don't like <what I believe is the "true" way for America to be run> then why don't you just implement your <fascist/capitalist> policies in your own <city/rural area> and leave the rest of us alone".

If as a society we aren't going to negotiate to find policies at the national level that everyone can live with then the only way that people can live under policies that are tolerable for them is if states start acting like nations.

I just traveled from WA to MN to IA to SD to WY and back. I got back 7/25/20. There were no stops or barriers.

You can get into them. You're just not allowed to wander around coughing on everyone until your quarantine period is up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com