Beatriz Meehan, 68, remembers traveling to Rome, Italy, two decades ago. Back then, she was left with the impression that the locals loved Americans, she said.
After visiting Europe again in March, she no longer feels the same way.
The Colorado Springs resident and her husband spent a week in Barcelona, Spain, where they planned to hike the mountain of Montserrat and visit the famed Santa Maria de Montserrat abbey to light holy candles for her granddaughter and her home country, she said.
A Latina who’s fluent in Spanish, Meehan sparked several conversations with people she met along the journey. Her taxi driver noticed the couple was American and compared the U.S. to his motherland, which is a dictatorship, Meehan said. “You’ll get used to it,” he told her.
Once at the abbey, Meehan realized she hadn’t purchased an advance ticket, so she faced a lengthy queue. She said she pleaded her case to a guard. “I’m from America, and I need to light a holy candle because of Trump,” she told him. At that, the guard escorted her past the line. “He said, ‘And light a big candle. Your country’s in trouble,’” Meehan added.
Colorado travelers like Meehan believe they are facing complications and negative interactions abroad due to President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign affairs. In just four months, he has proposed seizing control of Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada; sparked a global trade war through his inconsistent use of tariffs, with a focus specifically on China; and deported migrants to at least eight countries in Central and South America.
Some are concerned about how they’ll be received as Americans by government officials, locals and even other tourists, while others have already noticed tension on trips abroad this year.
Erin Morris, 45, is a U.S. citizen who has resided in Denver for seven years. She lived abroad in her youth, then spent a decade in Costa Rica. But while she has felt some unease in the past, those experiences are “nothing like this,” Morris said. “This is totally different.”
And they came from an unexpected place: Canadians traveling in Mexico. “There are a ton of Canadian ex-pats where we were, and they are really upset and very vocal,” she said. “I’ve never interacted with Canadians who are angry before.”
Morris said they seethed about Trump’s tariffs and his jabs at Canada. “The sentiment was mostly: they feel like they’ve been a good ally and a good friend to the U.S., and that they don’t deserve to be treated like that,” Morris said.
Jill Collins, 42, has traveled to 73 countries, globe-trotting as far as Kazakhstan and Georgia. In March and April, the Denverite visited Hong Kong, China and Japan with her husband.
He is a New Zealand citizen, while Collins holds both Austrian and American passports. “We intentionally traveled under my Austrian passport for this trip because of that rhetoric” by Trump, Collins said. “If I didn’t have another passport, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to China this trip.”
At the airport, Chinese customs officers had travelers hold their passports above their heads. Collins believes that happened so officers could easily see which countries people hailed from. Afterward, “the only people they pulled aside were people with U.S. passports,” Collins said.
After discussing the experience on a tour, Collins said her guide confirmed that the few Americans coming to China are being held at the airport with no explanation for extended periods of time.
In other conversations with hotel staff and tour guides, “they actually seem to feel a little bit sorry for us,” Collins said. “They make comments like, ‘It’s affecting us, too, and we’re in it with you.’ ”
Denver resident Danya Strait, 37, fielded frantic questions about the U.S. from foreigners when she spent a couple weeks in Berlin, Germany, earlier this year for a work trip.
“It definitely felt a little bit like 2016 and ’17 or going way back to the early 2000s when Bush was in office, and we kind of felt like we had to tell people we’re Canadian, not American,” Strait said.
The discourse with her foreign colleagues “was a lot of like, what is even happening in your country right now?” Strait said. “Questions around: Do you guys think you might want to, like, live abroad and not be there anymore?”
The experience overseas gave her some pause. She wonders whether criticisms of the federal government will impact her passage through U.S. Customs and Border Protection ports of entry. Strait also fears whether her access to other countries will eventually be limited as a U.S. citizen.
“I’m just nervous that other countries are gonna stop letting us in, especially if there becomes a greater exodus in people wanting to leave the U.S. altogether,” she said.
Travel agent Celine Kirk, 29, said she’s “seeing a lot of fear in the consumer,” and has been taking extra steps to prepare her clients for how to travel under Trump.
For instance, in China, Kirk recommends embodying the “quiet tourist” archetype: speaking less loudly, not being on the phone constantly and respecting local cultures.
While that is good advice for travel at any time, Kirk said it’s especially important under the current administration. That’s compared to former President Barack Obama’s two terms when “very friendly” tourism policies existed between China and the U.S., Kirk added. Then, “it was a little more comfortable than during the previous and current Trump administration,” she said.
Kirk’s Arvada-based company, Trek It Travel Agency, helps people book everything from $500 weekend trips to a $60,000 cruise along the Panama Canal. That one has left some clients with concerns after the Trump administration’s talk of controlling the Central American waterway.
She’s also seeing an uptick in would-be travelers apprehensive about visiting Mexico due to the recent focus on the U.S.-Mexico border. “The biggest thing is perceived safety,” Kirk said. “People see news about the border and think it is a reflection of the whole country and have a hard time separating the border from heavily tourist-reliant areas like Los Cabos and Cancún.”
Those Mexican cities, as well as islands in the Caribbean, are hospitality hotspots, so Kirk doesn’t think travelers should expect much of a difference in how they’re received. But in countries with economies that aren’t as reliant on tourism, she advises visitors to be more mindful.
“When we talk about going overseas, I think the location is going to be heavily dependent on the way that Americans are viewed,” Kirk said.
As for Meehan and her trip to Spain, she recalls noticing a group of young German men at an airport who were watching CNN. “As soon as Trump got on there — oh, my God — they started screaming and hollering at the TV,” she said.
“But this is what Trump did,” Meehan added. “This is what he did, and our standing in the world is different now.”
