The number of foreign visitors to the US continues to decline. This is because various policies announced by President Donald Trump’s administration have made tourists more cautious about traveling to the country.
Recently released preliminary government data shows that foreign visitors to the US fell 3% year-on-year in July.
That decline follows a trend seen almost every month since Trump took office in late January. For five out of six months, the US has experienced a decline in foreign visitors.
“Everyone is afraid and scared. There’s too much politics for immigrants,” Louise Francine, a Brazilian tourist to Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera.
Experts and some local officials say Trump’s tariffs, immigration crackdowns and repeated jabs about the US’s acquisition of Canada and Greenland have alienated travelers from other parts of the world.
Ryan Bourne, an economist at the Kato Institute, told Al Jazeera that the decline in tourism is linked to both Trump’s rhetoric and policy.
“(Down) can be placed on a fallout about the president’s trade war and the fear of becoming obsessed with immigrant enforcement.”
Travel research firm Tourism Economics predicted last week that the US would see an 8.2% lower international arrival in 2025. This is an improvement from previous forecasts of a 9.4% decline, but well below the number of foreign visitors to the country before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The emotional drag has proven to be serious,” the company said, indicating that airline bookings show “sharp slower inbound trips” in May, June and July.
The July 2025 figures do not explain neighboring Canada and Mexico, but the numbers are falling sharply, especially in Canada’s visitors. According to Tourism Economics, a quarter of Canadians who visited the United States this year visited the United States this year, compared to the same period in 2024.
According to the Canadian National Statistics Agency, more US residents drove to Canada in June and July than Canadians travelled backwards.
Statistics Canada said this was the first time this has happened in nearly 20 years, except for two months during the pandemic.
“Visa Integrity Fees”
In contrast, Mexico is one of the few countries with increasing tourism to the US. Overall, US government figures show that travel from Central America increased by 3% between May and May, 0.7% from South America, compared to a 2.3% decline from Western Europe.
However, in countries that have usually sent huge numbers of visitors to the US, there are big dips.
Of the top 10 tourist-generating countries overseas, only two people in Japan and Italy increased year-on-year in July. Visitors from India ranked number two fell 5.5%, while visitors from China fell almost 14%.
India has previously seen warm relations under the Trump administration amid sudden tariffs and geopolitical tensions, but the trade war against Chinese students and Trump’s (non-inverted) broadside has sparked concerns among Chinese tourists.
Deborah Friedland, managing director of financial services firm Eisner Advisory Group, said the US travel industry is facing multiple headwinds. Rising travel costs, political uncertainty and ongoing geopolitical tensions.
Since taking office in January for his second term, Trump has doubled some of the hardline policies that defined his first term, reviving travel bans that targeted countries primarily in Africa and the Middle East, tightening rules on visa approval and increasing mass immigration attacks.
At the same time, the promotion of tariffs on foreign goods, which became a critical feature of his second term, gave some citizens a sense of unwantedness elsewhere.
The $250 “Visa Integrity Fee,” scheduled to take effect on October 1, adds a hurdle to travelers in non-Visa-exempt countries such as Mexico, Argentina, India, Brazil and China. The additional fee has increased the total visa cost to $442, according to the American Travel Association. This is one of the highest visitor rates in the world.
“The friction that we add to the traveler’s experience will reduce travel somewhat,” said Gabe Rizzi, president of Altour, a global travel management company. “As the summer ends, this becomes a more pressing issue and we have to consider the fees in our travel budget and documentation.”
International visitor spending in the United States is projected to fall below $169 billion this year, compared to $181 billion in 2024, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
In May, the group predicted that the US would become the only country in 2025 out of 184 people with lower spending by foreign visitors. The discovery is “a clear indicator of the US’s global appeal,” the group said.
