My fellow Americans get used to living in a pariah state

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As the second Trump administration lurches from one self-inflicted crisis to another in a seemingly relentless quest to destroy both the material and moral foundations of American power, Americans will need to get comfortable with their new status as denizens of a global pariah state. Gone is the hope that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement were some kind of aberration. Instead, leaders and ordinary people in other countries now see the United States for what it is and always might be—an aggrieved superpower drunk on resentment, besotted with tyranny, and seeking vengeance for mostly imagined slights, populated by people who either chose this sordid path or did not care enough to put up a fight.

America's descent into what political scientists call "competitive authoritarianism" is now obvious to everyone except Republican loyalists. When the non-partisan think tank Freedom House releases its 2025 Freedom in the World report, the United States is almost certainly going to be busted down to the "partly free" category that it will share with countries like Hungary and our new buddies in El Salvador.

hat realization is spreading quickly. Outside of the COVID-19 pandemic period, tourism to the United States has been robust, with millions of monthly arrivals sometimes north of 8 million typically peaking in August. But in March 2025, as horror stories began to spread about European visitors being detained in horrific conditions or turned away at points of entry after Stalinesque searches of their computers for material critical of the Trump administration, overall arrivals were down over 11 percent year-over-year. No one wants to have their family vacation turned into some Kafkaesque nightmare at the hands of ICE agents emboldened by the country's general climate of incipient fascism.

That is true not just for leisure tourists but also for conference-goers whose research or work runs afoul of the Trump administration's novel interpretation of the First Amendment as not applying to anyone without citizenship. It will be especially true for countries like Canada, which have served as our stalwart allies even when the United States was making objectively horrendous decisions like invading Iraq in 2003. That kind of graceless, ungrateful betrayal stings for every single Canadian, as it should. Canadian arrivals have dropped more sharply than anyone else's.

But it's not just that no one will want to visit the pariah state of America. It is that Americans will also see their experience traveling and working overseas degraded by the short-sighted whims of Trump administration officials. For the 51 percent of Americans who have one, those dark blue passports are perhaps the most valuable documents in the world, entitling their holders to a level of deference from most foreign officials that citizens of other countries could only dream of.

Those days are over, and they are not likely to come back. No one defers to the citizens of a country whose government and promises can't be trusted. Now those blue passports will mark you as either one of Trump's willing executioners or one of his hapless enablers. And because U.S. Embassies are suddenly full of people worried about their paychecks and whether they will be targeted in the next round of civil service reapings ordered by the world's richest man, there may be no one in a position to help you.

And that's the best-case scenario. Things could get much darker if other governments decide to retaliate against American visitors in the same indiscriminate way that the Trump administration is harassing theirs. You'll want to think long and hard before you travel, or even transit through China and other countries that have been made the targets of MAGA retribution. There may soon be a long list of countries where it becomes as risky for Americans to travel as it has long been in Iran or Russia.

Perhaps more devastating is having to reckon with what the United States has become in the eyes of the rest of the world. What kind of people approve of a government that extra-judicially kidnaps innocents and renders them into the hands of a foreign gulag—and then hides behind that government when ordered by an American court to bring them back? What kind of people support cutting off funding for HIV treatment and abandoning innocents to starvation even if it means stiffing American farmers and contractors in the process? What kind of people back a government that feeds an ally into the maw of Russian authoritarian expansionism and then blames the victim for it?

The answer to all of these questions is "very bad people who can't be trusted." You're the villains now. Don't be surprised when you start getting treated accordingly.

So we're going to be banned from overseas travel?

So we're going to be banned from overseas travel?

I don’t think so. I do think more Americans traveling overseas will be treated rudely.

The big thing will be other countries are going to be less willing to share intelligence with us, say no when we ask them to help us, and be more willing to do business with China that would have gone to us. This will hurt the quality of life for most Americans.

Won't that just lead to more of them sewing Canadian flags onto their bags and claiming to be from Toronto?

I have not read stories about sewing American flags but I remember reading about Americans claiming they are Canadian. Locals hating Americans in their country is not new. The novel ‘The Ugly American’ came out in 1958. And there have spikes during events like the Iraq War. But this is at a whole other level.

Well with the recent behavior of the U.S is it any wonder that we're a pariah state. Like all I can say about that is yeah, as it should be, like somehow trump got elelected so I sure hope other countries aren't lookng up to this one. Like we should be a pariah state with the way the current trump administration wants to treat people.

And if we do travel abroad, people will assume that we're all Trump supporters. We'd be profiled simply because of our nationality, which ironically would run afoul of hate speech laws in the countries that have them.

Views of the U.S. and confidence in its leader to handle world affairs have taken a dive in more than a dozen countries over the last year, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday and conducted over the first few months of President Donald Trump's second term.

These declines are most pronounced among residents in neighboring Mexico and Canada, which have been at the center of high-profile spats with the administration, as well as a handful of NATO countries (like Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands) amid Russia's war with Ukraine.

Public sentiment about the U.S. has gone up in a few countries over the last year, most notably in Israel. But most of the two-dozen countries surveyed saw public opinion about the U.S. dip as Trump began his second term.

Overall, the poll shows an international community full of increased skepticism of Trump and his "America First" foreign policies, from his administration's antagonistic relationship with traditional close allies to its focus on tariffs to its friendly posture toward right-wing, populist movements that have been amassing more power in Europe.

Yet while the results in many countries are negative, Trump's marks are broadly higher this year in these nations than they were during the beginning of his first term eight years ago.

Fifteen countries have seen significant drops in their opinion of America over the last year. In Mexico, 61% of respondents had a favorable opinion of the U.S. in 2024, but just 29% feel that way this year.

In Sweden, which joined NATO in 2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine two years prior, a 47% favorable rating of the U.S. last year plummeted to just 19% this year, with 79% of Swedish respondents viewing America unfavorably.

And in Canada, a 54% favorability mark in 2024 dropped 20 points in 2025, to 34%, amid Trump's repeated threats to make the country America's newest state.

On the other end of the spectrum, the share of people in Turkey, Nigeria and Israel who rated the U.S. favorably increased significantly over the last year.

Pew polled 28,333 adults across 24 countries mostly over the phone or in person (Australia was the only country where people were polled online). The survey was in the field for various times across different countries from Jan. 8 to April 26. Polling in every country except Indonesia began after Trump’s inauguration, but it was either concluded or close to done by Trump’s April 2 announcement of sweeping international tariffs.

When it comes to Trump specifically, a majority of respondents in five countries of the 24 surveyed said they have a lot or some confidence in the president to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs: Hungary, India, Israel, Nigeria and Kenya. Majorities in nine of the 10 European countries tested have either not too much or no confidence in Trump at all, with at least three-quarters of respondents saying so in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany and Sweden.

Men, younger people and those who view their country's right-wing populist parties favorably are more likely to have more confidence in Trump.

For example, 51% of Japanese people ages 18 to 34 have confidence in Trump, according to the poll, while 31% of Japanese people 50 years or older say the same.

In the United Kingdom, 45% of men say they have confidence in Trump, compared with 28% of women.

Respondents across 13 nations registered a double-digit decline in confidence in the U.S. president on world affairs from 2024 to 2025. While 63% in both Sweden and Germany had confidence in then-President Joe Biden last year, just 15% and 18%, respectively, said they have confidence in Trump.

The survey also tested how well respondents felt several different personal characteristics described Trump. At least 60% of adults across 21 of the 24 countries surveyed said the word "arrogant" described Trump well.

Majorities in 20 countries said he's "a strong leader," while majorities in 21 countries called him "dangerous."

Majorities in three countries (Nigeria, India and Kenya) said Trump was "honest," and majorities in five countries (Greece, Japan, Indonesia, Hungary and Kenya) called him "diplomatic."

Compared with his first term, the share of people across most of the surveyed countries who see Trump as a strong leader and qualified has increased. There has also been a dramatic increase in the share of adults who believe America's president is "dangerous" in countries where Pew also tested Biden’s first year in office.

On confidence in Trump to tackle global economic problems, Trump is underwater in every European country surveyed, though Hungarians are effectively split. The survey was mostly conducted before Trump announced global tariffs on April 2.

In Mexico, where the survey was conducted following weeks of changing tariff policies on the country, 83% lack confidence in Trump’s economic policies. In Canada, which has faced similar targeting from Trump, 74% lack confidence, and 57% said they have no confidence at all.

Majorities in three countries — Kenya (56%) and Nigeria and Israel (62% each) — have confidence in Trump to handle "the conflict between Israel and its neighbors." His numbers among the countries tested are the lowest in Turkey, where 7% are confident in his handling of the issue.

Though a majority of Israelis expressed confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the ongoing war, the poll found that confidence in Trump among right-wing Israelis is nearly four times higher, at 83%, compared with the 21% of left-wing Israelis who have confidence in Trump on the issue. Adults in most other countries said they were not confident in Trump's ability to handle the conflict.

On Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, majorities in nearly all of the European countries surveyed, with the exception of Greece and Hungary, expressed little or no confidence in Trump

In Sweden, which joined NATO in 2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine two years prior, a 47% favorable rating of the U.S. last year plummeted to just 19% this year, with 79% of Swedish respondents viewing America unfavorably.

Honestly when has the rest of the world ever NOT hated Americans? Even Americans hate their own country. It's been going on since long before the Donald Trump insanity started.