Trump Finds a Brilliant New Way to Wreck the Tourism Industry
Donald Trump wants to charge people for the privilege of visiting the U.S.

A visa to the land of the free may soon cost you $15,000.
The State Department issued a notice Monday saying that it will require bonds of up to $15,000 to secure some tourist and business visas.
The high bond fees, which would be kept as insurance and then refunded when visitors leave the country, will be levied against tourists from countries with high rates of overstays, according to the notice. The administration has not yet specified what those countries will be.
The 12-month pilot program is set to go into effect this month, and joins other recent visa restrictions, such as the reinstatement of in-person interviews.
Donald Trump tried this once before: In 2020, during the final months of his presidency, he instituted visa bonds for travelers from a number of African countries. However, the Covid-19 pandemic dampened travel so severely that it didn’t have much impact and the measure was struck down by President Joe Biden when he took office.
This move will likely make travel to the U.S. unaffordable for many at a time when the number of international visits to the U.S. is already plummeting. Forbes projected that Trump’s policies will cost the U.S. up to $29 billion in lost tourism and put millions of jobs at risk—and that’s without visa bonds.