On the way to JFK, inching through a subterranean stretch of Queens that felt like a metaphor with exhaust, a parent sends a college-age child off to Berlin for a month-long theater intensive. The moment is tinged with privilege and pride, but also with unease: international travel, once a celebration of American openness, now doubles as a reminder that the world’s once-bright fascination with the United States has dimmed.
That bittersweet ride gives shape to a broader truth. Many in the American professional class joke about decamping to Canada, Ireland, or a sun-washed corner of Europe. Few follow through, yet far more are quietly exploring paperwork, tracing grandparents, and thinking about fallback options. Behind the quips lies a harder realization: the long-running global romance with America has ended, and the breakup feels mutual.
From flirtation to disillusion: The global mood shift
For decades, the world was sold on a dream: blue jeans, highways, neon diners, Manhattan skylines, and sun-swept California beaches. That image carried footnotes that many outsiders eventually read. The idea of exceptionalism—long treated as bipartisan common sense—has frayed. Younger generations, having grown up with wars, gridlock, and cultural estrangement, struggle to believe the country is uniquely destined to lead. The MAGA promise itself rests on a premise that something once-great has been lost, and only a hard turn backward can recover it.
Passports as contingency plans
Some Americans aren’t just fretting—they’re filing. In 2026, nearly 20,000 Americans applied for Irish citizenship, while about 9,000 pursued the more arduous British route, both record highs. Italy’s right-wing government has tightened earlier, more generous eligibility rules, potentially preventing millions with distant Italian ancestry from claiming a passport. Canada has moved the other way: anyone with a direct Canadian ancestor, no matter how far back, may qualify. In January of this year alone, almost 2,500 Americans reportedly applied for Canadian citizenship, with estimates suggesting up to a quarter of New England residents could be eligible, along with millions elsewhere.
Advisers say the clientele spans LGBTQ people, left-leaning donors, and those alarmed by authoritarian trends. As immigration expert David Lesperance told Al Jazeera last year, he has “never been busier.” London School of Economics sociologist Kristin Surak has a name for them: “Armageddon Americans,” people who want a legal parachute in case the turbulence becomes a nosedive.
Tourism pulls back despite a global boom
The world’s cooling ardor shows up in visitor numbers. Tourist trips to the U.S., once expected to climb from 72 million to 77 million in 2026, fell instead to 68 million, including sharp declines from Canada, France, and Germany—even as global travel hit record highs. With the FIFA World Cup largely taking place in the United States this June and July, hopes for a rebound have been dented: after modest gains in February and March, April visitor numbers were down 14 percent versus last year. Industry analysts cite a blend of politics, perception, policy confusion, higher costs, and global instability.
The perception gap: What polls reveal
Surveys underline a widening disconnect between how Americans view their role and how others see it. In a Politico poll in February, nearly half of American respondents said the U.S. “protects democracy,” while only 18 percent in Germany, 21 percent in France, and 25 percent in Canada agreed. When asked if the U.S. is a force for stability, just 36 percent of Americans concurred, and the numbers were below 20 percent in Canada, France, Germany, and the U.K. Yet 57 percent of Americans still believed the U.S. can be depended upon in a crisis—an assurance that barely registered across Atlantic capitals.
The view darkens further in the Democracy Perception Index, released in early May by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation. Surveying 94,000 people in 98 countries, it found that the global “net perception” of the U.S. has plunged 38 points in two years, from plus-22 to minus-16. Respondents ranked the United States as the third-greatest threat to world peace, behind Russia and Israel. While the Trump effect is a factor, the slide traces a longer arc—from Vietnam to the George W. Bush years and beyond—now reaching critical mass.
At home, a quiet reckoning
America’s internal fracture feels permanent to many. Some families are already overseas; others are considering it. But the more profound shift is internal: the slow erosion of the belief that the United States is the indispensable nation. Even among those who still wave the flag, the story line has changed. The country music tributes and mainstream Democratic reassurance can’t quite mask a deeper question: what if the world’s not actually waiting for America anymore?
Anecdotes echo the data. An Irish cousin—no stranger to U.S. visits—confessed after Trump took office last year that America now felt frightening. Irish coverage noted students backing away from the J1 visa this year, which once sent thousands across the Atlantic for summer jobs. One 19-year-old put it bluntly: “Europe is so much better in every way.” Those judgments can seem harsh, but they mirror a pragmatic shift from affection to caution.
A different kind of Fourth of July
Traditionally, the Fourth meant fireworks, BBQ, and the soundtrack of crickets and bullfrogs. Not this year. There will be an Oscar Wilde play in Dublin, followed by a couple of pints—an interlude rather than an escape. Second passports don’t erase identity; they widen options. The flight home will come, just not that night. And when it does, it will land in a country still wrestling with whether its self-image can be reconciled with how the rest of the world now sees it.
