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.”
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They’re literally turning back people at all borders; the land borders, the sea borders, even when people try to fly in. It’s all “Nope! Back you go”
We don’t want to go anywhere, those places don’t want us there, the government doesn’t want us to go there or come back from there. So I think we found the problem.
Its not hostility to the US. Its not wanting to get ICE’ed or have to put up with facists
“This presumably reflects increased hostility by
many foreigners to the U.S.the U.S. to many foreigners”
Should be “Both, why not?”
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.
There are countries you don’t want to visit, because you could lose your life, organs, and/or money (not necessarily in that order). There are also some places, where you’ll also get thrown in jail for strange reasons, or no reason at all. Nowadays, when people think of countries to avoid, they also group USA with places like North Korea, Mali, Russia, China, Syria, Afghanistan etc.
Why did I watch that documentary about the central park of New York, just when it became clear I won’t be traveling there. Might as well get even more hyped by watching documentaries about the amazing cities of ancient Babylon or the legendary library of Damascus. Good luck trying to have a vacation in those places.
God it will be SO delicious to watch literally the entire state of Florida writhe in agony.
The Mouse will not be pleased
Fuck. The. Mouse.
There, I said it.
Oh… in my hubris… what blasphemies have I professed!
Forgive me, oh Great-Eared-One! Send not your infinite wrath down upon me! I was lost in my madness!
Non-copyright Mouse forgives you.
Increasing hostility by many foreigners? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?
“Increasing many by hostility foreigners” makes no sense, I think they got it right.
Punching someone in the face does tend to make them hostile.
It’s reciprocal hostility.
I like road trips.
I’ve always felt that road trips are liberating and (since 9/11) air travel is dehumanizing. Even more so now. Air travel through the US can (results vary based on skin tone and/or political viewpoint) result in a torture camp being the final destination.
So, did travel work for my job. Driving long distances was a normal thing, company van.
Had to go to corporate for a training thing. After that, to get home and flying, took me 14 hours. The drive is 12.
Next time I had to get to corporate, company tried to get me a plane ticket and I refused, each time boss tried any reasoning it was responded with “14 GODDAMN HOURS!” I got to drive.
I like flying… as in the act of flying. But I refuse to fly anywhere in a 12 hour driving radius because the entire song and dance before and after I have found maybe I save an hour or two… and I am FAR LESS in a murdery mood.
Frankly over a 12 hour driving distance I still start looking at logistics.
I mean so can a road trip in the US.
I’ve traveled across the country twice and encountered border patrol agents a few times on both trips. I’m white and male (and now kinda old), so I didn’t have too many problems, but almost the entire country is considered a border zone by many federal agents.
Did a 4 day road trip for what would have been a 20hr drive. It was nice, except hotels are shitty and Americans are asshole drivers.
My experience has been that it depends greatly on whether you’re bringing people with you that you want to hang out with all day.
