Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“There is something worse than everybody wanting to come to your country: that’s if everybody tried to avoid it. America is not at this point, but there is a play about that in a theater of the absurd near you. Official figures show a significant drop in foreign tourists coming to America this year compared to the same period last year. … I suspect that many supporters of protectionism don’t realize that what foreign tourists spend in America is an American export. Just like for exports of goods, receiving tourists from abroad … uses resources belonging to American residents in order to produce goods and services for foreigners. Not surprisingly, foreign tourism in America is entered as exports in official statistics. American residents travelling abroad provide the mirror image …. A prohibition of American travel abroad would ‘save’ an estimated $248 billion in the annual balance of international trade.” (09/08/25)
https://www.econlib.org/lower-trade-deficits-and-more-foreign-investment/