{"id":11440,"date":"2025-06-12T20:03:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T12:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=11440"},"modified":"2025-06-12T20:03:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T12:03:58","slug":"traveling-in-the-trump-era-no-you-dont-have-to-apologize-for-being-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=11440","title":{"rendered":"Traveling in the Trump era: No, you don\u2019t have to apologize for being American"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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President Trump\u2019s return to the White House has revived a familiar media genre \u2014 columns lamenting how \u201cashamed\u201d Americans supposedly feel when traveling abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA Today\u2019s recent headline blared, \u201c\u2018I didn\u2019t vote for him\u2019: How American tourists are navigating global perceptions.\u201d It tells the story of how a couple actually canceled their overseas vacation out of fear they\u2019d be mistaken for Trump supporters. The BBC followed with, \u201c\u2019People might treat us differently\u2019: Trump era leaves U.S. tourists in Paris feeling shame.\u201d A Boston Globe columnist also chimed in: \u201cTrump\u2019s behavior makes me embarrassed to be an American.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To quantify the hand-wringing, a recent survey found that 72 percent of \u201cexperienced\u201d U.S. travelers worry they might feel unwelcome abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underlying assumption is clear: Foreign distaste for Trump taints every U.S. passport holder. But that anxiety reveals more about the worldview of those making the claim \u2014 usually progressive, elite, Western \u2014 than it does about how Americans are actually received overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also reveals how media narratives shape public expectations. Of course Americans fear being unwelcome \u2014 after all, the media keep telling them they will or should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WATCH: Ciattarelli, Sherrill emerge victorious in NJ primaries<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the time since Trump won last November, I have spent significant time in Greenland, Vietnam, England, Panama and Mexico \u2014 countries that have all been in Trump\u2019s crosshairs in some way. Not once did I experience hostility. After traveling through dozens of countries on five continents under both Republican and Democratic presidents, I have found the fretting about being American abroad to be wildly overstated \u2014 a projection of domestic political angst, not a reflection of global reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, most foreigners know who our president is, especially when he is as headline-grabbing as Trump. And yes, they often have opinions \u2014 don\u2019t we all? But the idea that everyday Americans are routinely shunned, judged, or made to feel unwelcome abroad because of Trump is a fantasy born of our own political obsessions. In truth, Americans are generally welcomed abroad. And when we aren\u2019t, it has less to do with politics than with other things \u2014 for example, our cultural obliviousness, our sheer numbers traveling, or the pressure that affluent travelers inevitably place on their local housing markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, some people abroad dislike Trump and may judge Americans accordingly. But most are preoccupied with their own politics, lives, and problems and understand that a president doesn\u2019t define his entire population. Yes, Trump is a globally recognized figure \u2014 so are Lebron James and Taylor Swift. Recognition is not reverence, nor is it revulsion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you include the entire population, about 23 percent of American citizens voted for Trump. The odds are good that any American you meet abroad did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And more to the point, most foreigners \u2014 like most Americans and even most Trump supporters \u2014 hold nuanced views about Trump. Last month in Nuuk, Greenland, I met an EU bureaucrat who said she had been alarmed by Trump\u2019s 2016 election, since his \u201crocket man\u201d tweets about North Korea initially had her fearing nuclear war. But after watching his unexpectedly cordial summit with Kim Jong Un, she reconsidered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t just look to where Trump is hitting the ball,\u201d she said of Trump\u2019s approach to foreign affairs. \u201cIt will ricochet a couple of times and then perhaps fall in the pocket.\u201d She, like others I have met abroad, holds a view of Trump that is simultaneously skeptical and strangely admiring \u2014 a nuance absent from the editorial pages of most American newspapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Greenland, I met some who despised Trump and some who genuinely admired him. Most responded to Trump\u2019s talk of purchasing Greenland with wry amusement. Some even gave a grinning, shrugging acknowledgment that at least he\u2019d put their country on the map. All the while, a thousand think-pieces back home were insisting that everyone in Greenland loathed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Hanoi, a woman told me she initially admired Trump\u2019s unconventional approach to adversaries. She said she has grown more skeptical as his tariffs have hurt her country. That\u2019s not blind praise or a knee-jerk rejection \u2014 it\u2019s nuance, the kind many reporters fail to register even among Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as often, the response is indifference. When I asked a Peruvian friend in Lima what she thought of Trump voters, she replied flatly: \u201cI don\u2019t.\u201d When I visited Peru, I didn\u2019t know the name of its president \u2014 why should she be consumed with ours? The U.S. wields outsized global influence, but it is narcissism to assume the world is constantly thinking about us. Maybe we should get over ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many liberals feel compelled to grovel, to disavow Trump the moment they leave U.S. soil. I never have, any more than I expected praise during earlier travels because global media darling Barack Obama was our president. I don\u2019t buy into reflected glory any more than I do reflected shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans reluctant to travel while Trump is president should not let pundits and alarmists talk them out of seeing the world. A U.S. passport is one of the greatest privileges of being American, opening nearly every border, often visa-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, being American might at times make you a target. Far more often, though, you will find respect, curiosity, and kindness. Most people abroad aren\u2019t interested in judging strangers for their country\u2019s politics. They are more likely to judge you for how you behave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to my fellow Americans: Use that passport proudly. Be ambassadors for the best of American values: our openness, our generosity, our eagerness to learn. That is what people abroad will remember most \u2014 not our president, but us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2019s return to the White House has revived a familiar media genre \u2014 columns lamenting how \u201cashamed\u201d Americans supposedly feel when traveling abroad. USA Today\u2019s recent headline blared, \u201c\u2018I didn\u2019t vote for him\u2019: How American tourists are navigating global perceptions.\u201d It tells the story of how a couple actually canceled their overseas vacation out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1954,1883,1724],"class_list":["post-11440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-americans","tag-how","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nTraveling in the Trump era: No, you don\u2019t have to apologize for being American - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=11440\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Traveling in the Trump era: No, you don\u2019t have to apologize for being American - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Trump\u2019s return to the White House has revived a familiar media genre \u2014 columns lamenting how \u201cashamed\u201d Americans supposedly feel when traveling abroad. 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