Long a bright spot, the industry is poised to post a trade deficit for the first time this century
The travel and tourism industry, which accounts for about 3% of the U.S. GDP, has long been one of the economy’s most robust sectors, particularly when it comes to trade: The U.S. had posted a trade surplus in travel every year this century. Until this year.
A drop in foreign visitors to the U.S. caused the real value of exports of travel services to fall at a 7.8% annual rate in the first quarter, according to the GDP report released Wednesday. The U.S. Travel Association says the United States is now running an annual travel trade deficit of $50 billion, compared with a $3.5 billion surplus in 2022.
“This presumably reflects increased hostility by many foreigners to the U.S., as well as fear of harassment by ICE officers,” Dean Baker, senior economist for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote in his note reviewing the first quarter GDP numbers. “We will likely see further declines in future quarters, especially among students coming to study in the United States.”
That’s the US though. We voted for this. I understand not wanting to be hostile to some individual citizens or whatever, but this is who we are as a country. The days of Trump being an aberration are long behind us.
We succeeded – against long odds and with more than a few scrapes and bruises – at getting rid of this creep five years ago and then pretty overwhelmingly voted to put him back in.
I really wish people would’ve remembered how close to ruin we came on January 6th, and remembered all of the lies, incompetence, and malice of 2017-2020 but they seemingly forgot about all of it and put his fucking ignorant ass back in there.
I thought it was something akin to a miracle that we got him out of that office the first time. Nobody else seems to have shared that belief.
The people that voted for him didn’t forget anything. They believe the lies. They want the malice. Just go watch some interviews of random supporters at his rallies. They are ignorant and unwilling to accept evidence in front of their faces.