Over the summer, we posted the travel warnings foreign countries had recently issued, so their residents would know about the current safety issues when traveling to the United States. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that many more countries have since issued warnings about traveling to the United States of America.
The most common reasons for the warnings include:
- Gun-related violence and mass shootings
- Political unrest and public protest
- Police brutality or discrimination concerns
- Hate crimes or bias incidents toward minorities and LGBTQIA+ travelers
Which countries?
There are now nearly 40 countries with such warnings:
- Australia: cites gun violence, mass shootings, police encounters
- Austria: firearm accessibility, racial discrimination
- Bahamas: police profiling, violence in U.S. cities
- Belgium: public shootings, violent crime
- Brazil: gun violence, civil unrest
- Canada: active-shooter incidents, terrorism
- Chile: armed violence, political protests
- China: racial discrimination, gun crime
- Cuba: racial tensions, civil unrest
- Denmark: gun prevalence, protests
- Finland: mass shootings, police encounters
- France: terrorism, gun violence, protests
- Germany: armed attacks, racial violence
- India: hate crimes, racial incidents
- Ireland: mass shootings, violent crimes
- Israel: anti-Semitic attacks
- Italy: gun crimes, crime hotspots
- Japan: gun incidents, safety alerts
- Mexico: gun violence, racial profiling
- Netherlands: random shootings, unrest
- New Zealand: gun incidents, crime
- Nigeria: hate crimes, racial violence
- Norway: urban crime, gun violence
- Philippines: gun crime, political protests
- Qatar: random violence, unrest
- Russia: violent crime, unpredictable law enforcement actions toward foreign citizens, potential for arbitrary detentions
- Singapore: gun violence, racial tensions
- South Africa: racism, gun crime
- South Korea: mass shootings
- Spain: gun violence, protests
- Sweden: hate crimes, crime
- Switzerland: mass shootings
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turkey: terrorism, shootings
- United Arab Emirates: civil disturbances, gun crime
- United Kingdom: gun violence, terrorism
- Uruguay: armed violence in U.S. cities
- Venezuela: “high levels of violence,” gun crime
Why this matters
So there you go. Regardless of what we think of the United States (and I suspect many of my fellow Americans agree we’re a hot mess right now), other countries are well aware of the very real problems we have with domestic terrorism, racism, gun safety, violent crimes, theft, global warming, medical costs, Black and Brown peoples’ interactions with the police and ICE, how we treat people seeking asylum, and even our (*cough*) puritanical opinions about some modern topics.
What you or I think about these things doesn’t matter. It’s a shame we’re so far gone that so many more countries are warning their citizens about us. I think this is a very poor reflection on our so-called past title of “best country in the world.”
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