Chris Hayes Warns Americans ‘Are Going to Pay the Price’ for Trump’s ‘War on Tourism’ | Video

Chris Hayes had a bleak comment on Wednesday about yet another downside to the policies pursued by the Trump administration — the deepening economic impact of the administration’s persecution of immigrants and even tourists that amounts to what Hayes called a “war on tourism.”

Hayes noted that we’re already seeing disastrous economic effects, notably a steep and sudden drop in the number of tourists coming to the United States amid illegal deportations and detainments for even minor issues. And Hayes warned it’s likely to get worse, particularly as it pertains to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. In the end, Americans are going to pay the price.”

Hayes began the commentary by bringing up the upcoming Olympics, noting that “this is a big deal, because when the world’s biggest sport event comes to your country, get a lot of tourists, a ton of revenue, global prestige that comes with hosting the Games. Last year’s Paris Olympics have more than 11 million paying visitors, and, of course, many more TV viewers watching and saying to themselves., ‘you know, we should visit Paris sometime.’ And under normal circumstances, LA could expect to see similar benefits. Last year, officials predicted the LA Olympics could generate $7 billion in revenue, with a significant chunk of that coming from foreign tourists. But circumstances aren’t exactly normal, are they? Donald Trump’s entire shtick as president is that America is being ripped off by foreigners, and we’re kicking people out, not letting people in. Heck, we’ve canceled the visas of more than 1000 foreign students in US colleges let many of them be hunted down for deportation with no due process.”

Hayes then noted some chilling comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the weekend: “Visiting America is not an entitlement to your rights. It is a privilege extended to those who respect our laws and values.”

“It’s policy born out of the general MAGA worldview that says that foreigners are taking from our society without contributing,” Hayes continued, adding that there is one portion of the economy in which “America has always run a huge trade surplus with the rest of the world.” Tourism to the United States.

“The US travel industry says it generated $1.3 trillion last year and supported 15 million American jobs,” Hayes continued. “That’s not just from foreign families on holiday. Much of it also comes from an educational system that was the envy of the world until a couple of months ago, because the world also sends its budding scientists and engineers and doctors to America to get educated. And then Americans again, take their tuition dollars, right?”

Hayes even noted one particularly famous example of this, Elon Musk, the South Africa-born billionaire now serving as one of Trump’s top allies who first came to America as a student. “His immigration status during those early years a little unclear, by the way,” Hayes quipped.

“Again, this is a very common story, and now the US is basically trying to chase all these people out with these ludicrous mass visa cancelations, which appeared to start as a kind of ideological crusade against people that had like wrongthink on the issue of the war in Gaza, but now they’re just on this just incomprehensively capricious spree where they appear to be just getting anyone that’s got any kind of infractions, including people who had none that none, that are maybe made up or an error,” Hayes went on, at this point citing multiple examples of this.

“Now, the effect of all this on people coming to this great country and on US tourism is exactly what you’d expect it to be,” Hayes said as he displayed charts showing the aforementioned deep decline in tourism to the U.S.

“Goldman Sachs says reduced travel and boycotts could cost the US almost $90 billion in lost GDP this year alone. Again, can’t stress this enough, that’s money that flows from foreigners to Americans that Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to possibly choke off. Trump can Bray all he wants about sticking it to those no good foreigners. But in the same way it’s actually Americans who are going to be the ones to pay the tariffs, when it comes to his and Marco Rubio’s war on tourism, it’s Americans that are going to pay the price,” Hayes concluded.

Watch the clip below:

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