Tag: trump

“domestic hoteliers are heavily reliant on imports for furniture, especially from high-tariffed China and Vietnam. Trump’s own hotels are filled with foreign-made dishware, chandeliers, and even American flags.

Making goods more expensive immediately reduces Americans’ discretionary spending, which is the bucket from which travel budgets are drawn. Recessions decrease vacations, sometimes sharply; after Trump’s tariffs, most of the major economic forecasting agencies (Moody’s, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morningstar) jacked up their expectations for an economic downturn. Consumer confidence also tracks closely with travel planning; the former was at a four-year low even before “Liberation Day” tariffs. Further losses in the stock market—as of press time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 3 percent since Inauguration Day—would also depress demand.

It gets worse for the American traveler. Over the decades, the dollar has been propped up by Washington’s leadership role in global tariff reduction; now that those tables have been turned, the greenback will be less desirable as the world’s backstop currency, placing downward pressure on its value (particularly if America’s heretofore world-beating economy begins to sputter). The dollar in Trump’s first four months slid 7 percent against the euro.

…

A mid-March Travel Weekly survey of 400 agents found that 59 percent had heard customer concern about anti-American sentiment abroad, with 22 percent reporting resultant cancellations. A YouGov poll in early March showed that not a single European country surveyed had a net positive view of the U.S., with favorability plummeting between 6 and 28 percentage points over the previous quarter. “In Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and Italy, these are the lowest figures…since we began tracking this question,” the pollster wrote.

So Americans will be traveling domestically, right? Not so fast. Starting on May 7, a whole 17 years after it was originally supposed to happen, Americans are no longer allowed to board a commercial flight unless using a REAL ID. Except Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said, “If it’s not compliant, they may be diverted to a different line, have an extra step, but people will be allowed to fly.” As of April, the Transportation Security Administration was reporting that 19 percent of current travelers were passing through checkpoints without Real ID–compliant documents.

…

What we do to foreigners, foreigners are eventually going to do to us. Right now, U.S. passport holders can visit most of the world’s countries without a visa or with a visa on arrival for up to 90 days. If the DHS gets into the habit of detaining and fingerprinting Europeans after their 30th day of vacation, you can expect that liberalism to constrict.”

https://reason.com/2025/07/19/the-u-s-border/

“President Donald Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting that he contributed to a 2003 collection of letters marking the 50th birthday of financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was later charged with sex trafficking involving underage girls. Although it is well established that Trump was friendly with Epstein when that leather-bound set of birthday wishes was produced, Trump insists he did not write the “bawdy” letter described by the Journal, which he calls a “scam” and a “fake story.”

…

Whatever the merits of this particular defamation claim, the president has a long history of abusing the legal system to punish constitutionally protected speech.”

https://reason.com/2025/07/21/trump-who-wants-to-straighten-out-the-press-sues-the-wall-street-journal-over-fake-epstein-letter/