The high drama of last week’s missile strike on Syria temporarily takes the focus away from US president Donald Trump’s more insidious manoeuvre. Stealthily but surely, Mr Trump has been proceeding with his campaign promise to wall off America. He has not managed to start on the “big, beautiful” wall he envisages for America’s southern border with Mexico. But make no mistake, he has thrown up an invisible barrier between the United States and much of the world.
In just three months, Mr Trump has turned the US from a shiny, exciting destination of choice for tourists, highly skilled workers, college students and conference delegates, into a dark and forbidding place. Last month, Mr Trump’s secretary of state Rex Tillerson issued four separate memos to US embassies and consulates worldwide, urging them to identify “populations warranting increased scrutiny” among visa applicants. No definition was provided of the suspicious population sets. But, the Trump administration’s attempts to impose travel bans on mainly Muslim countries and to make it generally harder to travel in comfort from the Middle East and North Africa, suggests US consular officials will be encouraged to profile people on the basis of religion and country of origin. Certainly, this form of “extreme vetting” would make a US visa extremely difficult to procure.
Perhaps it’s just as well that anecdotally fewer people now want to travel to the US to visit, work, study or present papers at seminars. According to the Global Business Travel Association, Mr Trump has cost the US travel industry $185 million (Dh675m) in lost revenue since his election. In late February, an internet travel search engine reported a 58 per cent decline in queries about flights from Britain to Tampa and Orlando. This is significant because Orlando, home to Disney World, is immensely popular with British holidaymakers and is usually high on the list of top 10 global destinations. The travel search engine also reported a 52 per cent decline in searches for Miami, 43 per cent for San Diego, 36 per cent for Las Vegas and 32 per cent for Los Angeles. Hotel prices were down by one-third in New York. The search engine’s findings confirmed those from another flight app, which said that US-bound flight searches had dropped 17 per cent since Mr Trump’s January 20 inauguration.
The so-called “Trump Slump” is also affecting college applications from foreign students. After years of high demand from overseas students, who pay full sticker price for tuition compared with Americans, Autumn 2017 application numbers are dropping. According to the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers, four of 10 US colleges reported a decline, particularly in undergraduate applications from the Middle East.
Based on the responses it received from more than 250 US institutions, the association noted that 39 and 31 per cent reported declines in undergraduate and graduate applications respectively from the Middle East. The context of this, it said, was rising “concern that the political discourse surrounding foreign nationals in the US leading up to the 2016 US presidential election could be damaging to international student recruitment efforts”.
All this indicates trepidation among foreigners that the US and its immigrant-bashing “America First” president would rather they stay away.
Even the niche business of US passport-procurement by the extremely wealthy is affected. Late last month, US law firm partner Reaz Jafri admitted to Forbes magazine that US citizenship is becoming less attractive because “coming to America has become a more difficult process and some of my clients are not as excited as before”.
Add to this a series of high-profile cases of detention and near-deportation by US immigration authorities. It happened to the prominent Egypt-born French historian Henry Rousso en route to a symposium in Texas. And to the Australian bestselling children’s author Mem Fox as she flew into Los Angeles on her way to a conference in Milwaukee.
The rash of bad publicity from such incidents would be the stuff of nightmares for tourism promotion boards anywhere. But especially perhaps for the US, which has benefited enormously from its worldwide image as a welcoming country full of happy high-fiving locals. To have Ms Fox, 70, admit her interaction with US agents reduced her to sobbing “like a baby” and that she “couldn’t imagine” ever returning to America is hugely negative.
Roger Dow of the US Travel Association implored Mr Trump to “tell the world that while we're closed to terror, we're open for business. Unbalanced communication is especially susceptible to being ‘lost in translation’.”
But there is little sign that the Trump administration is listening. April 4 marked the end of the bidding contest to build a prototype for Mr Trump’s “beautiful” wall. The requirements probably say a lot about Trump’s idea of America. “The north side of the wall [ie the US facing side] shall be aesthetically pleasing in colour.” In other words, only Americans need to find it pretty.
Rashmee Roshan Lall is a writer on world affairs
On Twitter: @rashmeerl
Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
Company%20Profile
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Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
Company%20Profile
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
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TV: World Cup Qualifier 2018 matches will be aired on on OSN Sports HD Cricket channel
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
if you go
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
The Light of the Moon
Director: Jessica M Thompson
Starring: Stephanie Beatriz, Michael Stahl-David
Three stars
SRI LANKS ODI SQUAD
Perera (capt), Mendis, Gunathilaka, de Silva, Nissanka, Shanaka, Bandara, Hasaranga, Udana, Dananjaya, Dickwella, Chameera, Mendis, Fernando, Sandakan, Karunaratne, Fernando, Fernando.
The%20Crown%20season%205
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Company%20Profile
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Fighting with My Family
Director: Stephen Merchant
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Nick Frost, Lena Headey, Florence Pugh, Thomas Whilley, Tori Ellen Ross, Jack Lowden, Olivia Bernstone, Elroy Powell
Four stars
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The bio
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite travel destination: Maldives and south of France
Favourite pastime: Family and friends, meditation, discovering new cuisines
Favourite Movie: Joker (2019). I didn’t like it while I was watching it but then afterwards I loved it. I loved the psychology behind it.
Favourite Author: My father for sure
Favourite Artist: Damien Hurst
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Expo details
Expo 2020 Dubai will be the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
The world fair will run for six months from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
It is expected to attract 25 million visits
Some 70 per cent visitors are projected to come from outside the UAE, the largest proportion of international visitors in the 167-year history of World Expos.
More than 30,000 volunteers are required for Expo 2020
The site covers a total of 4.38 sqkm, including a 2 sqkm gated area
It is located adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South
The biog
Place of birth: Kalba
Family: Mother of eight children and has 10 grandchildren
Favourite traditional dish: Al Harees, a slow cooked porridge-like dish made from boiled cracked or coarsely ground wheat mixed with meat or chicken
Favourite book: My early life by Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah
Favourite quote: By Sheikh Zayed, the UAE's Founding Father, “Those who have no past will have no present or future.”
The%20specs
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Race card
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 1,600m
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 1,600m
6pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-2 Group 3 (PA) Dh300,000 2,200m
6.30pm: Liwa Oaisi Group 2 (PA) Dh300,000 1,400m
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,600m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 1,600m
The National selections: 5pm: Flit Al Maury, 5.30pm: Sadah, 6pm: RB Seqondtonone, 6.30pm: RB Money To Burn, 7pm: SS Jalmood, 7.30pm: Dalaalaat