Trump policies single-handedly crushing US tourism

The Washington Post reports President Donald Trump’s many policies are taking a hammer to the U.S. tourism industry, according to numbers.

“This summer was a dismal one for international tourism in the U.S. According to the National Travel and Tourism Office, overseas visits were down by 1.8 percent in June (when the World Cup began and most teams were involved) compared with the same month in 2025,” reports The Post. “In July, when the soccer final was held, the numbers were down 7 percent, and in August, 11.8 percent. Provisional figures show that overseas visits were also down 4.3 percent in September, year over year.”

Trump’s unilateral attacks on Iran have ramped up prices all over the world, not just in the U.S. This has whacked fuel prices even harder in places like Europe and nations with the expendable income to fly across the ocean. So much so, that that planes appear to be carrying less passengers to U.S. airports.

The U.S. is one of the only major countries in the world losing tourism as the world continues to rebound from COVID-19 shutdowns. But joining Trump’s prohibitive prices appear to be Trump’s federal forces picking through tourists’ belongings and scrutinizing valuables and identification when they touch down in airports.

“Overseas travel has become more expensive since the Iran war pushed up the price of jet fuel. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that America’s previously robust tourism industry has become collateral damage in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown,” reports the

Apparently, new Trump-era rules allow agents to “undertake basic searches without any reasonable suspicion,” reports the Post, and this “undercuts America’s standing as a bastion of personal liberties.”

Scenes of U.S. agents “rummaging through the smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices of visitors,” are on the rise, reports the Post. And it does not help that tourists are now required to surrender passwords or risk being refused entry and having their devices seized.

In fiscal 2025, the Post reports U.S. Customs conducted 55,000 searches of international travelers’ devices — an 18 percent increase from the year before. And this is a jump from an even earlier snooping Trump regime. In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, agents conducted only 10,937 device searches; in the third quarter of this fiscal year, that number nearly doubled to 19,732.

“For law-abiding travelers planning a vacation, the prospect of a U.S. … official sifting through their emails and social media might make a week in Antigua or Barcelona [less] appealing,” reports the Post, adding that “overzealous” border enforcement elsewhere is compromising an industry of enormous value to the U.S. economy.

“The World Travel and Tourism Council found that international visitor spending in the U.S. in 2025 was $176 billion, a 4.6 percent drop from the year before,” said the Post. “Add another entry to the list of the Trump administration’s unforced errors, as with its tariff regime, that have hindered the free market.”