American Passports Are Useless Now

Perhaps one of the most humiliating aspects of the Trump/Pence regime's failure to properly handle the Covid-19 pandemic is the fact that currently Americans are not welcomed in the vast majority of countries in the world.   Indeed, currently, Americans are welcome in only Albania, Dominican Republic, Kosovo, Maldives, Mexico, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey (a few other nations in the Caribbean will allow Americans subject to testing and other restrictions).  That list ignores the fact that to get to some of these countries one would have to travel through nations where Americans are not allowed and, hence are not actually accessible to Americans.  As a further insult to citizens, the Trump/Pence regime is pushing a regulation that could leave Americans stranded abroad.  Donald Trump wanted a wall around America, and now the world has erected one to keep Americans out for practical purposes.  So much for making America great again.  We are now a pariah nation.  A column in The Atlantic looks at how low America has fallen.  Here are highlights:

Becoming a United States citizen was meaningful to me for a great number of reasons. German by birth, I had come to feel at home in America, and to love it. For all the deep injustices that shape this country, I remained convinced that the United States was more likely than just about any other place in the world to build a thriving, diverse democracy. And when I wrote about the danger that right-wing populists like Donald Trump pose to the American republic, I cherished being able to speak about his assault on our, as opposed to your, values and institutions.

Alongside all these serious reasons, I also had a very practical one: the power of the U.S. passport. It granted access to just about everywhere, and escape from just about anywhere.

U.S. citizenship not only ensured that I could choose to live in New York or San Francisco or any place in between; it also seemed to offer the freedom to roam the world in the assurance that, as my passport's old-fashioned preamble promises, “the Secretary of State of the United States of America” would see to it that I could “pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need [enjoy] all lawful aid and protection.”

But in this Year of the Pandemic, that promise rings hollow. My German passport, which I was able to retain when I naturalized, currently entitles me to travel almost anywhere in the world. My American passport can gain me access to only a handful of countries—not including Germany or the majority of developed democracies in Asia, Europe, Australia, or South America. The coronavirus is so out of control here that other nations (understandably) fear contamination from our citizens.

My assumption about which country would go to greater lengths to repatriate its citizens in a time of crisis appears to have been wrong, as well. Germany would welcome me back with open arms from this COVID-addled land, though I could be asked to self-isolate. But a draft proposal now circulating in the Trump administration indicates that the U.S. may seek to stop its citizens and legal permanent residents from returning to America from abroad . . . .

[I]f the plan becomes a reality in the United States, which is discovering some 50,000 cases a day without any help from the outside world, it will add idiocy to injury.

When I became a citizen, back in March 2017, I knew that President Trump would seek to destroy many of the American values I admire. I did not imagine that he would also fail to “leave no man behind.” Shouldn’t that credo hold special appeal to a man who claims to care about protecting America from a dangerous world? Instead of using his office to protect Americans, Trump has capitulated to the coronavirus at home; now his administration may also try to betray Americans abroad.