December 11, 2025 — 3:25pm
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A good many of us have that certain eccentric uncle we dread having to sit next to, or across from, during the festive season.
But Uncle Sam has taken the Christmas cake this time for prospective visitors to the States.
Once Uncle Sam just wanted you, as per the famous military poster entreaty; now, to gain admittance as a visitor to the US he, or more to the point the Trump administration, wants you to supply an unprecedented trove of information.
The famous US war recruitment poster has a new twist.
Here’s the list: your social media accounts from the past five years; five years of your phone numbers; 10 years of your email addresses; IP addresses; metadata from electronically submitted photos; biometrics, and information about family members.
As whacky uncles go, this is peak United States of Paranoia stuff, with the American tourism welcome mat now a shredded and stamped-upon version of its once largely inviting, even avuncular, former self.
Of course, there’s another eccentric uncle behind this outlandish plan in the form of a glass-jawed President Donald Trump, someone well-known for his sensitivity to criticism, even from as far away as Australia.
Not even communist regimes have devised visa conditions with this degree of chutzpah.
Earlier this year, in echoes of the latest border entry shenanigans, a reader of this masthead, who had coincidentally written a letter published in The Sydney Morning Herald critical of the Trump administration, had his approved visa to the US revoked only hours before his flight to the country that enshrines free speech in its much-vaunted constitution.
Not even communist regimes have devised visa conditions with this degree of chutzpah. I completed a visa application myself for a visit to a certain such country only this week, and while it was a time-consuming and questioning process, there was none of the demands proposed by the Trump administration.
The timing of the proposed US plan is yet another bitter blow for an already beleaguered US tourism industry, which had been hoping for a bonanza of five million international visitors for the FIFA World Cup – arguably the biggest major event on the planet, while the Los Angeles Olympics is now only two and a half years away.
Brand USA, the Stateside marketing arm equivalent of our own Tourism Australia, earlier this year had its budget slashed by the US government.
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As recently reported by this masthead, the latest US Department of Commerce data shows overseas visitors to the US have dipped 2.5 per cent this year, driven by large declines from France, Germany and Canada.
At the same time, the number of Australians visiting the US has fallen by 5.6 per cent. When isolated to tourist visas – by far the biggest category – that figure jumps to 6.4 per cent.
The announcement of the new US border entry restrictions couldn’t be worse timing for football fans planning to attend the FIFA World Cup – jointly hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico – in little more than six months’ time, with Australia’s national team, the Socceroos, scheduled to play preliminary matches in west coast US cities.
The sport’s ruling body must surely be planning to give the White House a piece of its mind only days after having awarded Uncle Donald a controversial “peace prize” in lieu of an elusive Nobel equivalent.
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“The proposed new entry requirements [for the US] will send shivers of doubt through football fans and others who have shared cheeky memes about President Trump on their social media accounts,” says one Australian veteran of five FIFA World Cups who is planning to attend his sixth (for now-obvious reasons, he doesn’t want his name quoted here).
“They will now wonder whether the US government would seriously try to use harmless jokes to deny them entry.”
The truth is that most potential Australian visitors to the US are largely apolitical in nature, with their social media accounts containing nothing more offensive than a succession of cat videos.
But, whether you’re pro-Trump, anti-Trump or none of the above, with such a ludicrously exhaustive list of requirements (should they receive final approval from US authorities) to enter the States, it may prove simply too onerous and time-consuming a process for most visitors.
So, all in all, on Christmas Day, perhaps give your eccentric uncle a break. Spare a thought for Uncle Sam and his mate Uncle Donald who, despite being behind a chain of eponymously named luxury hotels, is no friend of tourists or the US tourism industry.
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Anthony Dennis is editor, travel, at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.From our partners