bbtrvl

Reciprocity is a good thing to have sometimes and governments should negotiate for fair treatment on behalf of their own citizens.

But this is not a case where reciprocity is necessary. The situation is very asymmetric already. It's the US' choice to have such border controls that Trusted Traveler programs are necessary. The US benefits a lot by opening those programs to low risk foreigners, both directly from freeing resources and indirectly from frictionless tourism and business travel.

And can you imagine if every country required visa-free reciprocity for US citizens to have visa-free entry?

reclusive46

US Citizens certainly wouldn't be going very many places without a visa if that were the case. The US is probably one of the pickiest countries when it comes to allow people to travel without a visa.

I agree that for a lot of countries, entering it isn't much of a hassle in the first place and TT schemes are not really necessary.

nrr

I recollect that when the USA required Brazilians to apply for visas, Brazil retaliated by requiring visa for US citizens.

bbtrvl

They're rather open about this policy and particularly they match the $160 visa fee. I'm sure there are a few other countries that are as explicit about demanding visa reciprocity from the US but none come to mind.

GUWonder

Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Uzbekistan are the ones that come to mind as having had this approach, all while Argentina and Qatar have dropped out of this approach. But the list has been shrinking and the ways around it expanded, so can't comment about the current status of all those above-mentioned countries that came to mind in having a reciprocal fee.

Still, some countries charge US visa applicants more for visas than those countries charge most/all non-US applicants for their visas, even as the charge to US applicants for those (non-US) visas may not be a fully reciprocal amount.

Often1

Good. I wish that the US made it a precondition of GE that the other nation either established an expedited system for US nationals with GE or afforded an equivalent system. It is a significant benefit to all travelers and frankly, to the host nation as well. But, some governments balk at what can be viewed as intrusive privacy concerns.

kyanar

Really, Often1? Personally, I wish other nations made it a prerequisite that the US offer access to Trusted Traveller programs before offering expedited anything to US nationals. In New Zealand, a US national (originally with GE only, then expanded to all with ePassports) can clear customs in less than five minutes with Smartgate - no pre-registration or extra payment required. Biosecurity is a crap shoot, but a US national is as likely as a New Zealand national to be directed to the Green Lane if they have nothing to declare, with barely a glance from a sniffer dog to slow them down.

By contrast, a New Zealander visiting the US is subjected to long waits in a queue to reach an APC kiosk (if they've visited before) followed by up to 45 minutes to get grilled by a CBP officer on why they want to enter the US.

Maybe other nations should introduce reciprocity queueing in order to force US nationals to wait for as long as DHS/TSA make them wait at US airports? (Suddenly I doubt you're in support of reciprocity provisions!)

JamesBigglesworth

It's even worse than that. Not only does the US treat every visitor as a criminal until proven & documented otherwise (so much for risk modelling) they simply *cannot* cope with the concept of "transit passengers." The US is the only OECD country that can't come up with a way to deal with transit passengers that doesn't involve forcing them to "enter" the country and then, just to really drive home the lack of planning and security, they mix transit with general departure travelling public *without* introducing any local exit controls on that space.

If you ever study security practices and methods you learn very quickly why US systems & methods are always used in case studies for how *not* to do it.

halls120

How much demand is there for providing an improved transit passenger experience? With the wide availability of NS routes to Mexico and South American airports from major hubs in Europe, other than Miami, what airport really sees a lot of transit passengers? If I was flying to South or Central America from Europe, transiting in MIA isn't high on my bucket list.

Often1

This.

The US does not impose outbound passport control on passengers using a physical barrier and passengers who would qualify for transit if it existed represent a miniscule percentage of the traveling public. Thus, implementing a transit system would vastly inconvenience almost all passengers for the expense of a very few. That very few has also shrunk as nonstop service from South & Latin America as well as the Carribean headed to Europe has increased.

There is no financial incentive to reconfigure US airports in any event. Even MIA which has unused transit space built into its set up, gains nothing from this process.

The limited possibility that there are people who wish to travel via the US, but are excludable for one reason or another is hardly a reason to reconfigure a significant number of gateway airports. And for what? To gain the few dollars worth of spending which such passengers might make at a coffee stand?

JamesBigglesworth

Post hoc ergo propter hoc - simple logical fallacy


Implementing a transit system need not inconvenience anyone. Granted, if the US were to try it they *would* no doubt do it in a way that would inconvenience many, but that's a special cultural problem for the US.

That is almost true, except for the rise of the Middle East transit hubs which could have just as easily been located in the US for at least part of their traffic flows. Now, while the US has completely missed the bus on that one, there *was* clearly a case for transit.


Dubai suggests you are (or were, at least) mistaken.