Donald Trump

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

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Fox stands behind Trump policies that are hurting America's tourism industry

Fox personalities are even supporting a threat from the administration that would throw international flights into chaos around the World Cup

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published

Reporting has made clear since the early days of President Donald Trump’s second presidential term that his immigration policies, as well as his trade wars and combative rhetoric against America's allies, have cratered international tourism into the United States. Fox News has lined up in support of these Trump administration policies and actions, and Fox personalities are now also expressing support for a new threat by the administration to pull customs officers from major international U.S. airports ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

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  • Trump’s immigration policies, trade war, and rhetoric against allies have curtailed international tourism in America

    • The Washington Post: “Overseas travel to the United States has declined sharply since President Donald Trump returned to office” because “reports of detentions and deportations, including the weeks-long lockup of European tourists, have sowed fears of bad experiences at the border.” The Post continued, reporting that in March 2025, “the number of overseas visitors fell nearly 12 percent compared with the same time last year, according to data from the International Trade Administration, an agency under the U.S. Department of Commerce. The downturn, after a 2 percent decline year-on-year in February, is the first meaningful drop since travel plummeted in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.” The Post added, “If sustained, the decline could translate to billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue, industry experts project.” [The Washington Post, 4/18/25]
    • CBS News: “Trump trade wars could tank foreign tourism in the U.S., report finds.” In March 2025, CBS News reported that a new report from Tourism Economics found that “the White House's escalating trade war with Canada, China, Mexico and the European Union, combined with other factors, could weigh heavily on foreign tourism in the U.S. this year.” The article continued: “Overall, international travel from all foreign countries to the U.S. is expected to drop by just over 5%, according to the report. Factoring in diminished spending by Americans traveling domestically this year, overall travel spending in the U.S. could drop up to $64 billion in 2025.” [CBS News, 3/19/25]
    • The New York Times: “Trump Slump” turned projected tourism growth into sharp decline early in 2025. A report from The New York Times detailed how what it described as an “onslaught of contested policies and language by the Trump administration … is causing tourists around the globe to either cancel or reconsider travel to the United States.” The Times continued, adding that prospective visitors “say they feel unwelcome or unsafe” and that they “are reluctant to support the economy” by traveling here. Citing market research, the Times reported that travel to the U.S. had originally been forecast to grow by 9% in 2025, but estimates from the end of February 2025 instead projected a decline in “inbound travel” of up to 5.1%. [The New York Times, 3/26/25]
    • USA Today: “'It's insulting.' Why some Canadians are avoiding the US.” USA Today reported that “Canadians were once America's largest group of inbound international travelers, but recent data shows a shift as some turn away from the United States based on values and even a weakening Canadian dollar. The decline began early last year. According to Statistics Canada, the number of Canadians returning from the United States in February 2026 was 1.1 million – a drop of 13.25% from 1.27 million in February 2025 and 28.2% from 1.41 million in February 2024.” [USA Today, 5/26/26]
    • CNN: “There’s no sugarcoating it. The complete 2025 data is in, and the message is clear: International visitors stayed away from the US in the first real year-over-year decline since the Covid-19 pandemic” because of Trump’s rhetoric and policies. CNN continued: “This time, it wasn’t a pandemic or a collapse of the market — it was human error. Travelers cite presidential rhetoric and policies manifesting in highly public wars — both figurative and literal — as some of the reasons for staying away. Four million fewer foreign visitors came to the US in 2025 compared to 2024, with total spending decreasing by more than $8 billion. That’s not just bad for those working in the service and tourism industries. The impact of a self-inflicted decrease in international visitors of this magnitude has implications on America’s standing in the world, its soft power diplomacy and the economy as a whole.” [CNN, 5/25/26]
    • The New York Times: “Last year, the U.S. was the only major destination to see a decline in international travelers. With increased scrutiny at the border, ICE violence and unpredictable policies, the new year isn’t looking better.” The Times cited “initial projections from Oxford Economics, the global economic advisory firm” that “forecast a 3.9 percent growth in international inbound travel, a modest gain that would not recoup the decline since the start of the second Trump Administration.” The Times additionally cited the World Travel and Tourism Council’s reporting of a 6% drop in foreign visitors to the United States during 2025. [The New York Times, 2/20/26]

  • Fox has supported Trump’s immigration policies, as well as his rhetoric and trade war against America’s allies

    • Fox justified the killings of two American citizens at the hands of the Trump administration’s immigration agents. Multiple Fox personalities parroted administration talking points in response to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shooting and killing protester Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After multiple Customs and Border Protection agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a nurse who had been observing and recording their actions in the same city, some on Fox went far beyond parroting the administration’s talking points to smear Pretti directly. [Media Matters, 1/8/26, 1/25/26, 2/6/26]
    • Fox supported Trump’s immigration raids in multiple major American cities. This included justifying ICE’s violent tactics in Chicago, encouraging the use of the Insurrection Act against protesters in Los Angeles, and hyperbolically portraying Portland as “under siege” and the situation as a “rebellion” to support the deployment of National Guard troops there. [Media Matters, 3/9/26, 6/12/25, 10/10/25]
    • Fox relentlessly pushed the false claim that ICE is going after the “worst of the worst.” In reality, data analyzed by The Washington Post from June through mid-October 2025 showed that “more than 60 percent of the people detained in at-large arrests since June did not have criminal convictions or pending charges.” [Media Matters, 1/23/26]
    • Fox defended Trump’s initial tariffs on imports from Canada, China, and Mexico as part of a “drug war,” even though the network later admitted that it was a “trade war.” [Media Matters, 3/5/25, 3/13/25]
    • Multiple Fox personalities expressed support for Trump’s threats to seize Greenland. These included Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Laura Ingraham. [Media Matters, 1/21/26, 1/7/26]
    • Fox used a reported jet fuel crisis to goad European allies into joining Trump’s Iran war. Some Fox personalities argued that Trump was being “savvy” or “wise” in using his continued failure to force the Strait of Hormuz open to call for European aid he has erratically both demanded and refused during the course of his Iran war. Other Fox figures were even more blunt in their demands that Europe engage in Trump’s costly military misadventure. [Media Matters, 4/27/26]

  • Declines in tourism attributed to administration policies have hurt the U.S. economy

    • NBC News: “The combination of President Donald Trump’s trade policies and hostile rhetoric toward much of the rest of the world is creating a chill in international travel to the U.S.” NBC continued: “That shift might have a significant economic impact, with one Wall Street firm projecting U.S. revenue could collapse by as much as $90 billion this year when combined with reduced travel and U.S. product boycotts.” [NBC News, 4/18/25]
    • Financial Times: Trend of declining European visitors “poses a threat to the US tourism industry, which accounts for 2.5 per cent of the country’s GDP.” Travel website Kayak co-founder Paul English told FT: “In just two months [Trump] has destroyed the reputation of the US, shown one way by diminished travel from the EU to the US. This is not only one more terrible blow to the US economy, it also represents reputation damage that could take generations to repair.” The article added: “The drop in international visitors to the US underscores the potential economic impact of a more aggressive border policy under Trump. Last year, international visitors spent more than $253bn on US travel and tourism-related goods and services, according to the ITA, or more than 19 per cent of $1.3tn in US travel spending in 2024.” [Financial Times, 4/11/25]
    • Center for Economic and Policy Research senior fellow Dean Baker: “I realize this is over Donald Trump's head, but killing foreign tourism will increase the trade deficit.” Baker reposted a graph showing a plummet in foreign visits to the U.S. in recent months. [Bluesky, 4/10/25]
    • Baker wrote about the 2025 first-quarter GDP report, which showed a contraction: “Real spending by foreigners fell at a 5.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter. Harsh treatment of travelers by immigration officers, coupled with the seemingly arbitrary handling of student visas, is virtually certain to push this sum lower in future quarters.” Baker added for context: “One of our largest exports is tourism. Foreigners visiting the U.S. for tourism or as students spent $215.3 billion last year, 30 percent more than our food exports.” [Center for Economic and Policy Research, 4/30/25]
    • Quartz: “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" of 2025. Quartz added: “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.” The article additionally reported: “The U.S. had posted a trade surplus in travel every year this century. Until this year.” [Quartz, 5/1/25]
    • BBC: “According to a report by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the US was projected to lose a staggering $12.5bn (£9.35bn) in international visitor spending in 2025.” [BBC, 1/12/26]
    • Baker: April 2026 consumption data shows that “real spending by foreigners traveling in the United States was down almost 21 percent from its December 2024 level” after “rising rapidly in 2024.” [Center for Economic and Policy Research, 5/29/26]
    • Joint Economic Committee Democrats: “The number of jobs in the hotel and lodging sector declined last year for the first time since the Great Recession, aside from 2020.” The JEC’s report continued: “Under Trump, the smallest businesses in the leisure and hospitality sector have lost 63,900 jobs.” The report added: “America’s travel sector posted a nearly $14 billion trade deficit in 2025, the first deficit in that sector since data collection began in 1999.” [U.S. Senate, Joint Economic Committee, 5/4/26]

  • Hotel bookings in World Cup cities are already down, and the Trump administration is proposing pulling customs officers from major international airports

    • NPR: “With only six weeks to go before the start of the World Cup, hotels at most of the cities hosting the tournament are facing a major problem: Bookings are running far below what they had expected.” NPR reported that a survey conducted by the American Hotel and Lodging Association reported that “nearly 80% of hotel bookings across host cities are running below initial forecasts.” NPR added that “the survey results appear to be another sign that overseas travelers are not planning to come to the U.S. in the numbers once expected as a result of a slew of factors including tighter immigration policies by the U.S. administration.” [NPR via KCUR, 5/5/26]
    • The Trump administration has floated the idea of pulling customs officials from international airports in multiple major cities around the time of the World Cup. CNBC reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened on Fox News to stop “processing international flights into” major cities whose governments oppose Trump’s brutal immigration agenda. CNBC noted that these comments “came just ahead of the FIFA World Cup next month that is expected to bring millions of visitors to host cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, drawing alarm from the travel industry.” According to the story, trade association Airlines for America said that reducing customs staffing “at major airports would have a devastating effect on the airline and tourism industries, causing a significant operational disruption to carriers, travelers and the flow of international cargo.” [CNBC, 5/28/26]
    • Bloomberg: The U.S. Travel Association said pulling customs officers from major cities’ international airports “could put at risk roughly $8 billion in annual international visitor spending. It also warned of disruptions to cargo operations that handle more than $30 billion in imported goods annually.” [Bloomberg, 5/29/26]

  • Fox personalities and guests defended the idea of effectively suspending international flights into major American cities

    • Fox host Will Cain: “I think Mullin gives a very, very compelling” explanation for the idea of suspending international flights to major cities. Cain went on: “If you can't devote resources into protecting all of those people” from people protesting Trump’s immigration policies, “then if you have to prioritize resources as the feds, then you’re going to say yeah, well, we're going to put our priority where we also have cooperation from local law enforcement. And it’s international flights that will affect Americans coming home from France or the UK, but that makes sense, priority-wise.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/28/26]
    • Fox contributor Ben Domenech: “It’s something that could be an interesting question to ask all these governors and mayors — how far are you really willing to go in this insane anti-border policy in order to entertain this idea?” Host Harris Faulkner agreed, saying: “It will be an interesting question that they’ll have to answer, how far are they willing to go to fight ICE?” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 5/28/26]
    • Fox Business guest Mark Tepper: “I think it’s a strong, powerful move” to threaten to end international flights to major cities over immigration policy. Guest anchor Cheryl Casone added: “It’s pretty targeted.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 5/28/26]
    • Fox guest Michelle Backus: “It seems as if people are divided, but at the end of the day, the Trump administration has had it” over immigration policy protests. She added: “Actions have consequences, and for too long you see these sanctuary cities that are housing illegal immigrants, federal agents aren’t able to do their jobs, and quite frankly, it’s also harming American citizens as well.” [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 5/28/26]
    • Fox guest Charles Marino said threatening to pull customs officers from major airports is “the right approach” though he warned that it’s the “wrong time … especially with the World Cup approaching.” Marino said sanctuary cities “need to be dealt some serious consequences for their behavior in endangering the lives of the American people,” but added : “Maybe after the World Cup, then we can revisit the approach at the airports. But right now, I don't think that airport approach is a political reality for the secretary.” [Fox News, Fox Report, 5/31/26]