It becomes one more reason not to visit the US? Not only is it an additional expense but it adds to the overall messaging that foreigners are not welcome.
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For a lone adult, you would probably be right.
For a child though, that fee seems excessive. Its definitely going to impact group tours with foreign families.
A family with 2 adults and 2 teenage kids…would attract a bill of $400 for 1 day.
Thats pretty steep.
Drivers license/passport?
The number of people crossing oceans to get to the USA is pretty small compared to the number of visitors from Canada and the US. I can certainly see those folks reducing their US park visits.
What countries visit the USA the most?
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In 2024, Canada and Mexicoremained as the top sources of visitor arrivals to the United States, with 20.24 million and 16.99 million visitors, respectively.
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Excluding Canada and Mexico, the United Kingdom topped the list with 4.04 million visitors, followed by India (2.19 million), Germany (1.99 million), Brazil (1.91 million), Japan (1.84 million), and France (1.71 million).
Lots of people don’t have passports, and non-citizens can get drivers licenses iirc.
I am sure we will see an accounting in 2027 showing how the income from national park admissions soared in 2026 due to this new fee regime. Numbers should look good compared to 2025 as many folks are boycotting travel here this year. WC 2026 should also provide an uptick in foreign visitors.
Not a snowball’s chance in hell this pipeline will ever get built. No private company would risk the investment.
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I’m not going to go all Donald Trump on foreigners and immigrants, but the US has a lot of problems. Our National Parks are not one of them. They deserve to be protected and prioritized for Americans to enjoy first. If charging non taxpayers a lot to use them better funds them at the expense of wealthy foreign travelers, that seems like a reasonable policy.
Of course the rest of the messaging from the Trump administration is horrible so this will be an as just more anti-foreigner policy. Which is not necessarily a bad take either.
They charge by car, not person.
My bad. You are correct.
I just want the national parks to be fully staffed again. It feels like that’s something everyone should agree on, but we don’t.
They arent fully staffed probably because it’s something we can all agree on, so it gets used by both sides in politics.
This is from 2017. It is specifically about Yellowstone.
“International visitors were from 25 countries and comprised 17 percent of total visitation to the park during the study period. Forty-nine percent of international visitors came from Europe, 34 percent came from China, and 10 percent came from Canada,” the report said.
The 17% is relevant to Trump’s thing. Given that it is Trump, I wonder if somewhere in his feed he hears Americans complaining about going to national parks and they hear non-English speakers. He wouldn’t look at numbers, it’s just feelz.
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Hegseth’s new children’s book
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/franklin-the-turtle-pete-hesgeth-9.6998672
EDIT:
EDIT²:
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Saw this on CBC. What a turkey (Hegseth, that is).
I am so embarrassed he is our Secretary of Defence.
This is wrong on so many levels.
I guess you call this “owning the libs”? I call it “disgusting”.
I thought it was a consequence of excess amounts of alcohol and testosterone.
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So we should accept Hegseth’s behaviour as it is beyond his control. Got it.
