Once a Magnet, Becoming a Pariah

Foreign tourists, students, researchers and others are turning away from Trump's America—a rational response to a dangerous regime

(Illustration created with AI.)

I have family members who live in other countries and are reluctant to visit America now. I have former students who come from abroad and are wondering whether they can stay here. I have friends in Europe who have reached out to check if I’m OK and to say they can’t believe what’s happening in America.

Last month air travel to the U.S. by foreign tourists was down about 10 percent and road trips by Canadians dropped 32 percent year to year. International student enrollment in American colleges and universities, which exceeded 1.1 million a year ago, is expected to drop this year and cause harm to those schools that count on their tuition dollars. Scientists and other post-graduate researchers working in the U.S. are looking to leave our shores as funding cuts and the overall assault on academic research accelerate.

Declining tourism. Declining student enrollment. Accelerating brain drain. These changes represent rational responses and inevitable consequences to the climate of hatred, uncertainty and danger that Trump and his henchmen have fostered, made worse by revoking visas of students and other academics who speak their mind and aggressively stopping foreign visitors at airports or other border crossings.

You may not have heard about the two teenaged German tourists who were detained, handcuffed and put in prison uniforms for allegedly not having proper visas, but I assure you that people in their home country heard about it. And they were not the only European or Canadian tourists who’ve been swept up by increasingly draconian border officials. “We had already noticed a little bit of what was going on in the U.S.,” said one of the German teens about the anti-foreigner reality. “But at the time, we didn't think it was happening to Germans. That was perhaps very naïve. We felt so small and powerless.”

Once a magnet and beacon to the world, Trump’s America raises the dark specter of becoming a pariah state—an outcast, increasingly isolated and despised by former democratic allies and everyone who believes in the responsibility of building civilized, respectful societies and rejects a hostile nation that thinks the international rules and norms do not apply to them. We can see it in Trump’s exit from the World Health Organization, abandonment of USAID and its human-centered foreign aid work, withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council, attacks on NATO allies and backing the interests of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and announced reorganization this week of the State Department that includes downsizing or eliminating units that focus on democracy and human rights, global criminal justice and combating antisemitism.

It’s a strange experience to be rooting against your own country and to be cheering retaliation and rejection of the actions and words of your own country’s leaders by foreign leaders. But we should take strength from the knowledge that there is a larger international community that yearns for the survival of American democracy, mourns Trump’s hostile takeover and accelerating destruction of democratic institutions, fears the escalating damage to vulnerable populations, and expects their leaders to oppose it with full-throated clarity. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney may have summarized the reality best: “The old relationship we had with the United States is over.”

America’s reputation coasted for decades as a result of its role in World War II, when we helped beat back Nazi aggression and liberate Europe. This goodwill was expanded by the Marshall Plan, the economic recovery plan that helped 16 European countries rebuild after the massive destruction, improve prosperity and stem the spread of Communism. That foreign investment of over $13 billion (about $150 billion in 2024 dollars) was not just good for Europe; the resulting reconstruction helped facilitate American economic growth. Post-war American dominance was not just economic, it was increasingly layered with affection toward American culture and America’s full-hearted commitment to democracy.

People from around the world yearned to come to America, to soak in the seemingly relaxed lifestyle, the openness, the sense of opportunity, the optimism untainted by war on the home front, the apparent lack of a rigid class system, indeed the appealing naïveté of a confident, often unsophisticated but unusually positive people. Welcome to America! Enjoy your stay! Many came and never wanted to leave—immigrants who grasped the opportunity to make something of themselves and live the American dream, so far removed from the constraints they felt in their home countries. America became more prosperous because so many motivated people contributed their talents and innovations to their adoptive country.

Someone like Donald Trump, born into wealth and handed hundreds of millions that cushioned him from the reality of his long string of failures, could never grasp how profound this positive vision of America has been in its growth and global reputation. Rather than ride the fortune that he never earned, he only saw himself as a victim and believed the world around him was trying to cheat him. His employment of “America First” as his political tagline could be better summarized as “Screw Them All,” never comprehending that if you condemn everyone else, soon you’ll genuinely be all alone and perceived as a pariah.

We are living through his malignant psychodrama, expanded into a hateful, lawless agenda that seeks to deport millions without due process, drive out students and academics who think differently, enact killing tariffs that fuel retaliation and hostility, reject long-time allies and embrace murderous dictators—in short, commit political and economic suicide as the world demonstrates that it will not be bullied by a man and a country that imagines they can treat everyone like garbage and get away without consequence.

I can tell you that April’s street protests are not just a welcome beginning for many of us who oppose the Trump regime and its authoritarian rejection of the rule of law, the Constitution and basic decency. They remind our friends in Canada, Mexico, Europe and around the world that America is not a Trump monolith and that we refuse to accept what is happening. We will make this point more emphatic as the protests grow.

That doesn’t mean that we can expect foreign tourists, students, researchers, investors and others to soon believe that it’s safe or sensible to be in America. Repairing the damage this regime has already caused will take years, if not decades, to overcome.

But let’s not lose sight that it’s in our power to change this trajectory, secure a future that represents our better selves, and rebuild a country that can be a beacon and a magnet again. The most cynical among us might find my lingering optimism naïve, but I look forward to the day when such optimism wins out.

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