Aussies are traveling to the US in droves, despite Trump's strict border stance: report
According to new data released by the Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA), travel from Australia to the US increased by 4.8 percent year-on-year and was up 8 percent in May 2025 compared to May 2024.
Advertisement
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) were also up in various categories including traveling on a holiday (up 12 percent compared with last year), visiting friends or relatives (up 15 percent) or for business (up 8 percent).
It shows a solid improvement compared to April where there was a 6.2 per cent decline.
US inbound travel to Australia, however, slipped by 3.7 percent in May and remained flat year-on-year with a modest 0.6 percent rise.
'The USA remains popular with outbound travelers, but the muted inbound response highlights challenges in achieving a balanced two-way tourism recovery,' ATIA director of compliance and membership, Nina Hedges said.
Destinations Aussies are travelling to over the US
Advertisement
The US continues to take a back seat to destinations like Bali, Japan and Vietnam, which lead the way as Australia's favourite overseas locations.
According to recent ATIA figures, for the year ending May 2025, outbound travel surged by 12.5 percent to 12.21 million trips, driven by a strong appetite for travel across Asia.
Standout growth included Indonesia (Bali) up 16.3 percent, Japan, up 32.4 percent, Vietnam, up 25.8 percent and China, up 26.9 percent.
3 More Australians are heading to the United States despite being previously affected by President Donald Trump's strict border policies.
AFP via Getty Images
Advertisement
'Asia continues to shine as the preferred playground for Australian travellers, with Bali, Tokyo and Ho Chi Minh City topping itineraries for millions,' Ms. Hedges said.
Japan specifically continues to see a growth in visitor numbers thanks to expanded flight options and the region's strength with the AUD, allowing it to stretch further for accommodation, dining and shopping.
'Australia's love affair with America could fade'
Flight Centre chief executive and founder Graham Turner told news.com.au that in the first three months of 2025, leisure bookings to the US from Australia dropped about 12 to 15 percent compared to last year, while business travel remained 'on par'.
But he anticipated the decline to 'accelerate' for both leisure and business travel across April, May and June.
Advertisement
June figures are yet to be released.
Meanwhile, Sarah Megginson, a personal finance expert at Finder, previously said perceptions of hostility and the current political climate 'could see Australia's love affair with America fade.'
She warned Australians to check their travel insurance policies carefully before going to the US as many insurers would not provide cover if you are denied entry at the border.
3 Data released from the Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) shows travel from Australia to the US increased by 8% in May of 2025, compared to the same time a year ago.
WILL OLIVER/EPA/Shutterstock
There's been reported cases of tourists being denied entry on arrival and at times, strip searched and thrown in prison.
It comes as the US maintains strict immigration rules with significant emphasis on border security and entry eligibility.
'With tensions rising on American soil, Australians are rethinking holidays to the US at the moment,' Ms. Megginson told news.com.au in June.
'There's growing sentiment among Australians that the potential issues that could arise when visiting the US are beginning to outweigh the appeal of visiting some of our favorite cities.
Advertisement
'My husband recently got back from a week in Los Angeles, and he noticed a huge shift from previous visits: he was questioned in detail about all aspects of his trip and why he was travelling alone.
3 Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) also shows holiday travel to the U.S. went up by 12% compared to 2024.
AFP via Getty Images
'It was a really hostile welcome, and if travellers feel they're being treated like suspects at the border, they'll simply take their travel dollars elsewhere.'
Meanwhile, according to Finder survey results, it appears older Australians are less likely to be deterred by what is happening politically in the US, with this age group actually traveling to the States more on Intrepid trips this year than they did last year.
Advertisement
Leigh Barnes, who is the company's managing director of the Americas, told news.com.au his team had increased their focus on domestic travel within the US, promoting the right products at the right time, and increasing their brand presence.
Canadians visiting the US plummets
Other visitors from other countries aren't so enthusiastic about the US with Canada – the country's biggest market for international visitors – having plummeted more than 14 percent, according to the US International Trade Administration, with almost a million fewer Canadians so far in 2025 compared to last year.
Visitors from other countries, such as China, South Korea and Germany, have also declined.
The drop in Canadian figures come as then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadians not to spend holiday dollars in the US after Mr. Trump's talks about tariffs and referring to Canada as 'the 51st state' in February.
Advertisement
He repeated that call to action until he left office in April.
Forbes reported that three-quarters of Canadians who had previously planned a trip to the US say the tariff announcements influenced their plans.
Over half (56 percent) of those who had been planning to visit the US have since decided to travel elsewhere, according to a survey by Leger Marketing of over 1,500 Canadian adults fielded mid-May.
Advertisement
Tourism Economics, which forecasts foreign traveller arrivals in the states, said the US is looking at a significant nine per cent drop in international arrivals for 2025, and a drop of $US8.5 billion – $A13 billion (-4.7 percent) in international visitor spending compared to last year.
The travel data company's May report cited factors contributing to the negative outlook include Mr Trump's administration posturing and policy announcements, such as 'Liberation Day' tariffs across longstanding trade partners.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
EU vowed $600B US economy investment from Trump trade deal. Hours later, European bloc admitted it can't back that promise
Less than a day after President Donald Trump claimed that the European Union had agreed to invest $600 billion into the United States as part of a trade deal that will see Trump ask Americans to shoulder a 15 percent import tax on many European goods, EU officials are quietly backtracking. The deal to avert a full-on trade war between the U.S. and one of its major trading partners came into shape over the weekend as Trump met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. Trump had threatened to impose a 30 percent tax on EU imports in a letter to von der Leyen earlier this month. But he told reporters traveling with him on his extended-weekend golf holiday that he and von de Leyen had agreed that the U.S. would impose 'a straight-across tariff of 15 percent' for 'automobiles and everything else' imported into the U.S. from the bloc. Trump also said the EU had agreed to open its own markets by not raising any retaliatory taxes on American goods. Though tariffs are designed to promote domestic production and purchasing by taxing imported goods, the increase in cost typically falls on consumers, not foreign governments. This is because retailers often sidestep the increased import costs by raising prices. Still, the president's public statements have indicated that he sincerely believes that tariffs are paid by foreign nations as a sort of tribute for the purpose of accessing American markets. In fact, they are paid by American importers and passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. The European Commission president called the agreement a 'huge deal' that would 'bring stability' and 'bring predictability,' calling both benefits 'very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.' The president also claimed that the agreement would bring $600 billion into American coffers by way of investments made by the EU into U.S. companies. But on Monday, multiple EU officials walked back the massive outlay by noting that it would be made by a variety of private companies over which the bloc has no authority when it comes to corporate spending priorities. One such official told Politico that none of the funds touted by Trump would be from the public coffers of any EU nation. 'It is not something that the EU as a public authority can guarantee. It is something which is based on the intentions of the private companies,' the official said. Another official stated that the $600 billion figure had been calculated "based on detailed discussions with different business associations and companies in order to see what their investment intentions are,' but as of Monday the European Commission has not announced any plans to use any sort of incentives to encourage the investment at issue. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump is getting the world economy he wants -- but the risk to growth could spoil his victory lap
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is getting his way with the world economy. Trading partners from the European Union to Japan to Vietnam appear to be acceding to the president's demands to accept higher costs — in the form of high tariffs — for the privilege of selling their wares to the United States. For Trump, the agreements driven by a mix of threats and cajoling, are a fulfillment of a decades-long belief in protectionism and a massive gamble that it will pay off politically and economically with American consumers. On Sunday, the United States and the 27-member state European Union announced that they had reached a trade framework agreement: The EU agreed to accept 15% U.S. tariffs on most its goods, easing fears of a catastrophic trans-Atlantic trade war. There were also commitments by the EU to buy $750 billion in U.S. energy products and make $600 billion in new investments through 2028, according to the White House. 'We just signed a very big trade deal, the biggest of them all,' Trump said Monday. But there's no guarantee that Trump's radical overhaul of U.S. trade policy will deliver the happy ending he's promised. The framework agreement was exceedingly spare on details. Most trade deals require months and even years of painstaking negotiation that rise and fall on granular details. High-stakes negotiations break Trump's way Financial markets, at first panicked by the president's protectionist agenda, seem to have acquiesced to a world in which U.S. import taxes — tariffs — are at the highest rates they've been in roughly 90 years. Several billion in new revenues from his levies on foreign goods are pouring into the U.S. Treasury and could somewhat offset the massive tax cuts he signed into law on July 4. Outside economists say that high tariffs are still likely to raise prices for American consumers, dampen the Federal Reserve's ability to lower interest rates and make the U.S. economy less efficient over time. Democrats say the middle class and poor will ultimately pay for the tariffs. 'It's pretty striking that it's seen as a sigh of relief moment,' said Daniel Hornung, a former Biden White House economic official who now holds fellowships at Housing Finance Policy Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'But if the new baseline across all trading partners is 15%, that is a meaningful drag on growth that increases recession risks, while simultaneously making it harder for the Fed to cut.' The EU agreement came just four days after Japan also agreed to 15% U.S. tariffs and to invest in the United States. Earlier, the United States reached deals that raised tariffs on imports from Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United Kingdom considerably from where they'd been before Trump returned to the White House. More one-sided trade deals are likely as countries try to beat a Friday deadline after which Trump will impose even higher tariffs on countries that refuse to make concessions. Trump's long-held theory now faces reality The U.S. president has long claimed that America erred by not taking advantage of its clout as the world's biggest economy and erecting a wall of tariffs, in effect making other countries ante up for access to America's massive consumer market. To his closest aides, Trump's use of tariffs has validated their trust in his skills as a negotiator and their belief that the economists who warned of downturns and inflation were wrong. Stocks rose slightly on Monday morning on tariffs that once seemed unthinkably risky. 'Where are the 'experts' now?' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted on X. But the story is not over. For one thing, many of the details of Trump's trade deals remain somewhat hazy and have not been captured in writing. The U.S. and Japan, for instance, have offered differing descriptions of Japan's agreement to invest $550 billion in the United States. 'The trade deals do seem to count as a qualified win for Trump, with other countries giving the U.S. favorable trade terms while accepting U.S. tariffs,' said Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist. "However, certain terms of the deals, such as other countries' investments in the U.S., seem more promising in the abstract than they might prove in reality over time.'' Trump is also facing a court challenge from states and businesses arguing that the president overstepped his authority by declaring national emergencies to justify the tariffs on most of the world's economies. In May, a federal court struck down those tariffs. And an appeals court, which agreed to let the government continue collecting the tariffs for now, will hear oral arguments in the case Thursday. And he's yet to reach an accord with China — which has deftly used the threat of retaliatory tariffs and withholding exports of rare earth minerals that are desperately needed for electric vehicles, computer chips and wind turbines to avoid caving in to Trump's demands. The U.S. and China are talking this week in Stockholm, Sweden. Economists remain skeptical of the impacts for US consumers There is also skepticism that tariffs will produce the economic boom claimed by Trump. Analysts at Morgan Stanley said 'the most likely outcome is slow growth and firm inflation,' but not a recession. After all, the 15% tariffs on the EU and Japan are a slight increase from the 10% rate that Trump began charging in April during a negotiation period. While autos made in the EU and Japan will no longer face the 25% tariffs Trump had imposed, they will still face a 15% tax that has yet to appear in prices at U.S. dealerships. The administration has said the lack of auto price increases suggests that foreign producers are absorbing the costs, but it might ultimately just reflect the buildup of auto inventories to front-run the import taxes. 'Dealers built stocks ahead of tariff implementation, damping the immediate impact on retail prices. That cushion is starting to wear thin,' Morgan Stanley said in a separate note. 'Our Japan auto analyst notes that as pre-tariff inventory clears, replacement vehicles will likely carry higher price tags.' Economist Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute for International Economics warned of a 'slow-burn efficiency loss'' as U.S. companies scramble to adjust to Trump's new world. For decades, American companies have mostly paid the same tariffs – and often none at all – on imported machinery and raw materials from all over the world. Now, as a result of Trump's trade deals, tariffs vary by country. 'U.S. firms have to change their designs and get inputs from different places based on these variable tariff rates,'' she said. 'It's an incredible administrative burden. There's all these things that are acting as longer-term drags on economy, but their effect will show up only slowly.'' Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said that the United States' effective tariff rate has risen to 17.5% from around 2.5% at the start of the year. 'I wouldn't take a victory lap,'' Zandi said. 'The economic damage caused by the higher tariffs will mount in the coming months.'' Josh Boak And Paul Wiseman, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What is JD Vance's net worth?
Vice President J.D. Vance, who won in November on a ticket with Republican Donald Trump, is an investor, venture capitalist, best-selling author and the former U.S. Senator from Ohio. So what is Vance's worth? Here's a look at his net worth. Business: JD Vance, Steve Case want the heartland's start-up pitches J.D. Vance net worth estimated between $5 million and $10 million, less than $500,000 in debt Vance, 39, of Middletown, has a net worth of $5 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, which uses data drawn from public sources as well as information provided by celebrities or their representatives. Forbes puts his net worth at an estimated $10 million, with his only significant debt being $480,000 owed on a Washington, D.C., house purchased in 2014. Citing Vance's 2022 Congressional financial disclosure, Celebrity Net Worth reports that the majority of his 100-plus investments are worth between $1,000 and $15,000. Some of Vance's major investments include: Huntington National Bank, which holds $250,000–$500,000 Charles Schwab checking account, which holds, $100,000–$250,000 Robin Hood checking account, which holds $100,000–$250,000 Five Goldman Sachs CDs valued at a combined range of $500,000–$1.05 million Shares in the QQQ Exchange Traded Fund worth $500,000–$1 million $100,000–$200,000 worth of 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF shares $500,000–$1 million worth of DIA SPDR ETF $500,000–$1 million worth of SPY SPDR ETF Bitcoin holdings (held through Coinbase) worth $100,000–$250,000 Walmart stock worth $50,000–$100,000 The combined value of these assets alone adds up to between $2.7 million and $5.6 million. JD Vance homes, real estate holdings Forbes reports that JD Vance has around $4 million in real estate holdings. Those include: A home just east of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., purchased for $590,000 in 2014 and worth about $850,000 today. A home in Cincinnati's East Walnut Hills neighborhood bought for $1.4 million in 2018 and worth $1.8 million today. A home in Alexandria, Virginia, purchased for $1.6 million in 2023 and worth $1.8 million today. How much does Vance earn as Vice President of the United States? As the country's second in command, Vance makes $235,100 each year he serves as vice president, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. How much did Vance make as a senator? Vance earned an annual salary of $174,000 as a U.S. senator, according to the NTUF. Vance resigned as senator just before taking on his role as vice president. 'Hillbilly Elegy' earns Vance nearly $500,000 According to Business Insider, Vance reported earnings of $475,308 in 2021 off royalties from his 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." That royalty payday in the year he announced his political candidacy was an increase from the previous year. In 2020, his book earned him $347,752, not including a movie deal with Netflix. VP has Columbus ties: Who is JD Vance? Vice president has multiple ties to Columbus Colleges pay Vance $70,000 to speak after 'Hillbilly Elegy' published In the two years after the publication of "Hillbilly Elegy," Vance visited 18 colleges and universities to give commencement addresses, lectures or political talks, the Associated Press reports. He was paid more than $70,000 for those visits, according to records provided to the AP. At the time, Vance, an Ohio State University and Yale Law School graduate, spoke highly of education, the AP reports. But once he announced his political campaign, he targeted universities as enemies of the conservative movement. Vance won U.S. Senate seat in 2022 before running for vice president In November 2022, Trump-endorsed Vance defeated Democrat Tim Ryan in the election for the U.S. Senate, keeping one of Ohio's seats in Republican hands. The race to replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman became one of the most watched in the nation, and Republicans fought harder than planned to keep a seat critical to a GOP Senate majority. Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan raised millions of dollars and took advantage of a bruising GOP primary to keep the race close until the very end, as the Cincinnati Enquirer previously reported. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What is JD Vance's net worth? Vance' net worth estimated $5 million Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
