London (AP) – The urgent nursing doctor has laid Mari Santos and her American accent.
It took four days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and Santos was a student with a stomach error in the first few weeks of a semester abroad in Glasgow. A doctor came after six hours of waiting to see her. But before he asked what hurt her, he said the following: “I assume that it is interesting time to be an American.”
Until then, 20-year-old Santos had not thought of Trump-her 104-degree fever and the concern to be unwell abroad. But the president and his triumphant return to the White House, she says, are in the idea of her doctor and gave the American university student instant training in geopolitics. The lesson as she sees it: “There is a way terrifying in the air.”
“I knew that Europe might not be a big fan of American politics,” said Santos, “but I hadn’t expected it to be such a personal thing.”
The United States and their focus show a unique room in an international conversation. People in the world talk about America – his politics, his inclinations, their place in the world. You have had for generations. You did it during the Iraq war. You did it during the first Trump government.
And two months after Trump 2.0, at least in many European and English-speaking countries, it happens again even more intensely.
People from other countries have questions about Trump – and trust
The answering of America as part of the novel Trump government becomes a sensitive experience for some of the estimated 5 million US citizens who live in other countries.
From Santos in Scotland to others in New Zealand, France, Germany, Great Britain and Canada told Republican and Democratic Expats of Associated Press in the past few weeks that the moment when they are American changes, essentially: “What about Trump?”
In this change, this change is about who you can trust in the thoughts so far, in world politics and in life. Trump, known that the truth is what he says, is now the voice of America – not the VOA, the independent intelligence service, which told the history of the nation for eight decades until he brought it to silence on March 16. The president himself gave an example in which trust is almost irrelevant.
“Who do I trust? I mean who do you trust? Do you trust someone?” During an interview last month, he said to the viewer when asked how much he trusted people like Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post.
What comes after the revelation comes that someone is an American are US citizens overseas, are unpleasant questions, breaks and euphemisms – but almost always an indication of America under Trump in 2025.
“This year ago, the typical follow-up would ask where I came from and what brought me to France,” said Anthony Mucia, 31, a native of Nebraska who has lived in Toulouse, France and has been overseas for six years. “Twice asked me the first thing someone asked me:” Are you glad to be in France now? “Almost how it automatically became an embarrassing topic.”
Expats are what these interactions bends, is Trump’s orders and statements that have built 80 years of international order and frightened markets.
He talked about how the USA “take” in one way or another “from Denmark,” take “Panama and make Canada the 51st US state. He wants to empty and develop a war gaza and cut US aid for the most needy people in the world. He falsely blamed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the Russian invasion, and ended a meeting of the White House with Zelenskyy after insulting the Ukrainian guide. Trump has let the leaders of Europe know that the United States is not a convinced ally that turns out to the Russian threat. And he triggered tariff wars with China, Canada and Mexico.
Not to velvety American experience in overseas is the counter -reaction against Trump’s collaboration with Elon Musk and Tesla, which has fueled growing boycott movements. People join Facebook groups to exchange ideas for avoiding US products. The feelings are particularly robust in the Nordic region – especially in Denmark, where Trump’s movements have “cooking the Danish Viking blood”, said a man of the Associated Press.
So far, the interactions are less hostile than careful, the Americans say overseas. However, the feeling of anti-US mood is a concern on the coast of what is a record-breaking international travel season for Americans.
Prepare to talk about “what’s going on”
The 32 -year -old Jake Lamb moved from Colorado to Auckland, New Zealand in 2023. Kiwis stays cordial about it, but they said they have to “hide” Lamme or guarantee that he is “one of the good” when Trump escalates in conflicts with former allies. He believes that good humor is careful.
“I am concerned that it can be difficult to blame individual Americans,” said Lamb, a volunteer coordinator for a charity and who voted for the democrat Harris, in an e -mail.
The 33 -year -old Elizabeth van Horne has been living in France since 2013. For years, people would ask: “Why would I live in France for everything in the world if I could live in the USA: ‘It is so nice, there is as much potential to live as much chance as in a TV show.”
“Now this romantized picture has changed completely,” said Van Horne, a democrat, in an e -mail. At the beginning of March, a postal institution told her that it was gloomy.
“For me,” she said, “this conversation summarized: ‘Je suis desole pour vous’ – ‘I’m sorry for you.'”
It can be complicated for Trump supporters abroad
Georganih Burke, a Syracus living in Ottawa, who lives in Sytawa, supported Trump in all three elections and is the chairwoman of the Republicans in overseas in Canada. She is a double citizen who does something like the Friedensbrücke that the two nations in Buffalo, ny, connects
Trump’s tariff war, its kind and its provocative conversation about how Canada “only works”, as the 51st US state “brings all hair on fire,” she said in an interview. The 77-year-old Burke says she had received threats and had a tense conversation with an anti-trump colleague. People ask: “How could someone vote for him?”
An invitation to talk about the trade towards the end of March came with the organizer that he was “pretty sure that most people will be polite”. Burke accepted the invitation.
She says that the anti-American mood was bad during the Iraq war under President George W. Bush in 2003. But now it’s different.
“Then it was more about the politicians,” said Burke recently in an interview. “Now it’s much more personal.”
Burke’s counterpart in London, Greg Swenson of Republicans Overseas UK, says that as an American in another country, remains more positive than negative. In interviews with media transactions, he willingly recognizes that Trump can be “disgusting”. But Swenson, 62, is an investment banker, and he says that the president and America are still good for business.
“In the private capital world, which is not affected by daily volatility (market) volatility, there is only a large amount of optimism,” said Swenson. This means that investors work with US providers and customers and seek American “credibility” through “belonging to the president”.
What people in overseas are currently thinking about Americans: a survey on social media, neighbors and other shows are much strange and worried. When an American father took care of Reddit that his family was not welcomed in Ireland, an Irish father who asked the AP replied to identify him through his Reddit trade in this way:
“Many people like me are really, very alienated and angry with the USA and Americans,” wrote MDMB13. “But the good news is that we are Irish, so you will never know because (we) bury our feelings in a distant place and indicate it for decades.” He ended his comment with a smile emoji.
