'A hostile state': Why some travellers are avoiding the US
bbc.com
bbc.com
Before the latest incarnation of Trumpistan though.
Musk should have gone after TSA et al first, he could have dismantled the entire rest of the government on the goodwill from that :)
Comparing the US with Brazil, especially with respect to some violence-adjacent statistic, is absurd in a way I don't think anybody from anywhere aside from perhaps South Africa could grasp big is your privilege.
But I find the airport border security in CPT Airport much more pleasant. The worst that happens is that they sometimes go through your stuff thoroughly, hoping to ding you some money for "importing" e.g. that second bottle of booze.
In all of these cities, there is crime and violence. Less so in NYC and Boston. In all of them, there are safer places and times, and less safe areas. If you know what they are.
You can't say "USA crime and poverty rates are terrible, therefore Manhattan will be very dangerous" - it just doesn't work that way.
There are too many things that "shouldn't" in the US that just are and that is what makes me avoid visiting as often as I once did. The current descent into a quasi-fascist state isn't enticing either.
Brazil, on the other hand, is a poor country with rich pockets (chances are we both grew up in one), and poverty is kind of expected and hard to avoid. At least there (I don't live in Brazil anymore) we see a government dedicated to reducing economic inequality. I hope they succeed.
In the meantime, I guess I'll learn some basic Mandarin and spend more time in China. It's an interesting country that's now opening up to the world and with a lot of new things to be discovered by those who grew up elsewhere.
Taking a straight line on the map in San Francisco, we saw people in conditions as grim as I have ever seen, including South African slums. As you say, it's in some ways worse because the USA should not - there must be the ability to improve that, but not the inclination. The dire pockets are smaller in the USA, sure. But there were also extremes of luxury and poverty.
It is certainly not for lack of money all around that many/most live on the street. Money is the one thing that sloshes all over the place. Mental health care and friendly administrations of all kinds, on the other hand, not so much.
But once you've got the language to a decent place, it's pretty nice. I'm hesitant to express how much I like it here, though… I look at what's happening with all the foreigners causing trouble in Japan, and really hope that the "scary" reputation of China helps keep those types of people from descending like locusts here too. Some secrets are better left kept…
+ what about the gov? I have a lot of friends who emigrated from China and they are complaining a lot about freedoms, social welfare, and work life balance back home.
> In the meantime, I guess I'll learn some basic Mandarin and spend more time in China.
Uhhh....
It is a Russian-style aristocracy with zero freedom of speech. I genuinely believe that Lula as a "people's person" cared for the "people" at some point, but that's long gone.
Brazil is a failed state with 52(!) GNI. That level of inequality signals a gargantuan failure of the state.
My hope for the country is that is gets split at some point, since as it is, it only "works" for a very small minority.
> The current descent into a quasi-fascist state isn't enticing either. > In the meantime, I guess I'll learn some basic Mandarin and spend more time in China.
What?
E.g., if I had friends in the US, or I wanted to see Yosemite National Park, why would the education system matter?
Because that is a thing that can happen now. If I didn't already live here, I wouldn't come here for any reason.
Many people I know have also cancelled travel plans and bookings. There are definitely some undeniable changes in how we're spedning our vacation time.
But, the idea of tariffs being anywhere near as bad as harassing visitors is ridiculous. That's a whole nother level of violation.
Canada should just be happy someone's talking about them and they didn't even have to move to LA to make it happen.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/27/canada-us-flig...
"Airline travel between Canada and the US is “collapsing” amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, with flight bookings between the two countries down by over 70%, newly released data suggests."
Even if you could organize one with space for 100,000 people, it wouldn't be the same. For one, due to fire bans an effigy burn would be unlikely. And it wouldn't be in the desert which is a big part of it.
I'm not at all against the idea of another 7-day burn with a different name as an alternative to burning man though. Host it in BC where drugs are decriminalized and it'll probably be a lot safer for people too (in terms of legal repercussions).
Always reminds me how Europe is viewed as a single entity (I guess minus Ireland and England, though)
Nothing weirder than normal noted in FL except a Cyber truck with "Thank you Elon" taped out on the back panel!
A French citizen was denied entry because they found messages criticising Trump on his phone/computer. Not detained for weeks, but could well have been for all we know.
If you refuse then they won’t let you in, and you will be banned from ever returning
But myself I wouldn't go to the USA right now as well. In the case that anything goes wrong, there is likely so much chaos in all the agencies right now, the danger of error is just very high and impact could be catastrophic.
The border patrol can effectively do anything they want, for any reason. If they ask you to unlock your devices, do it. Let them take it away to be imaged. There will be nothing of value on a burner device.
1password has a travel mode which will remove vaults from your devices. Take this one step further and remove everything unnecessary for travel from your devices
It is not hard to imagine a scenario where a foreign government might surreptitiously plant a rootkit on a lowly IT workers device as they transit customs, as a means to pivot for corporate or other espionage
It is much more common to phish the administrative staff for a firm to get network access but you would have to be a fool to ignore the vector of customs simply using direct physical access for a much more effective hack
I just realized that the most restrictive border I ever crossed was a trip to Tel Aviv and it was well known even back then that they would inspect everything about you before you even landed
Stay the hell away, it's literally 1939 here.
Ultimately my money would be going to a Christian nationalist regime and I have no illusions about what kind of "freedom" the US have in store for the world.
This is from the playbook, it's a trial run for "Night and Fog": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacht_und_Nebel
i think it isn't a trial run, it is just a natural progression of things when the power becomes more and more unchecked.
There is already 3rd term talk - Vance runs, Trump as VP on the ticket, Vance resigns after winning and voila. That way he can also do 4th and if medical science progresses well - 5th, etc.
Actually, that's an interesting question: does the VP share that same presumption of immunity? If so, then Vance could just do the deed right now and get off Scott free.
The back door third term via VP trick only cleanly works for candidates before they've been elected twice.
Any attempt by Trump to run as VP will almost immediately be locked up in chaos.
It's another dead cat on table smoke 'n mirrors distraction play.
To quote another:
The reason Donald Trump is talking about this third term ridiculousness is very plain.
Second-term American presidents are lame ducks. That’s just how it is. And if they are unpopular lame ducks, after awhile their allies may start to look past them toward the future.
Trump is undoubtedly terrified of this—of becoming irrelevant before his term even ends, particularly once the race to succeed him heats up.
The way for him to keep the specter of lame-duckishness at bay is to tease the idea that just maybe, who knows, he just sorta might run for a third term.
That’s the play, and the media is being played.
Addendum:
The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person can be elected to the office of President of the United States to two terms, and sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors.
It has been argued that the 22nd Amendment and 12th Amendment bar any two-term president from later serving as vice president as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the presidential line of succession.
Others contend that the original intent of the 12th Amendment concerns qualification for service (age, residence, and citizenship), while the 22nd Amendment concerns qualifications for election, and thus a former two-term president is still eligible to serve as vice president.
Neither amendment restricts the number of times someone can be elected to the vice presidency and then succeed to the presidency to serve out the balance of the term, although the person could be prohibited from running for election to an additional term.
Nothing about 2 terms. The 12th says:
" But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
One can see that "constitutionally ineligible" here can easily be only about things like being natural born citizen, age (ie. the things which apply even to the 1st term). At least when you have your own Supreme Court.
When you have your own Supreme Court it's easy. The next step will be to declare that two consecutive terms is actually just one long term, and so on. Every dictator does something like this - not always the exact thing, but something like it, some flimsy excuse and if everyone goes along with the excuse, they gain power.
I remember people thinking he'd never do something like try to overturn the 2020 election with fake electors. I mean it didn't work but he kind of gave it a shot.
I dunno man; Vance is ambitious, but doesn't seem like such a sycophant. I'd say there'd be a non-negligible chance that instead of resigning, Vance has him "accidentally extradited" to an El Salvadorian prison.
why I don't agree on the prison part, yeah, IMHO the people "behind" trump see him as a manipulable but also volatile (i.e. problematic/bothersome/annoying/dangerous for them) tool to get and stay in power
MAGA as a movement (and the people who prop it up) will need a successor. Musk knows trump will eventually go fully senile or have a stroke or just keel over dead from old age, and Vance is a good logical next person to step in and take the reigns.
Trump would be 82 in 4 years.
you mean with arbitrarily claiming they have "no way to get them back" to spread more fear and suppression in ways mirroring the evil methods of authoritarian governments through history
let's be real the only way in which they could have "no way to get them back" is if they didn't imprison them in El Salvador but instead murdered them (and I don't think the US is at that level today)
the only one who has no way to get them back is the court/legislative, i.e. the US isn't anymore a state of law
Last time trump was president, his administration directed the separation of thousands of families at the border, and many of the children were "lost" and never returned. They are now somewhere in the US presumably with some foster family, but they purposely did not keep records of the separations and now there is no way to get them returned to their families.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/16/us-lasting-harm-family-s...
Maybe they murdered the children, maybe they shipped them off somewhere else? Who knows? One thing is for sure though, trump 2.0 seems far, far worse and more vindictive and more authoritarian.
I'm glad they posted links, that is a lot better sourced than many media groups. But the links suggest that the UK's updated advice [0] is "follow US law while in the US, the form you want is an ESTA". That is something of a non-statement. In fact there is a lot in this article that on close inspection doesn't say anything. Like the rather generic Soligo quote for example.
[0] Bizarrely the source trail is via The Hill; I would have thought the BBC could go straight to a UK government website.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35176741
it is affecting more people, and more "mainstream" people.
I cannot find it, but I recall a British MP either being denied entry or being held a few years ago.
keep in mind if you're flying into the usa you might be passing thru usa-owned security screening even overseas. Britain, Ireland, have separate security screening, all with USA personnel.
And if people still want so desperately to come in my country, they got to follow the rules, whatever how stupid and outrageous they are.
I know it's also contributing to slowing the economy, not only tourists but new talents, qualified migrants may think twice before getting in, external investment may be lower.
But does it really matter to the American farmer or blue collar ?
And I believe those who voted for trump are against government services and more towards free market, so it's even more a non issue to them.
At the end, it's more of America to Americans and less to strangers.
America for real Americans is a great idea! Hopefully they won't have to live in reservations anymore.
That's kind of the crux of the issue: stupid and outrageous rules.
They are worried about extra-judicial incarcerations and deportations, in some cases apparently for political opinions i.e. thought crime
Have a think about what your country is rapidly becoming