You're an American in another land? Prepare to talk about the why and how of Trump 2.0

News

You're an American in another land? Prepare to talk about the why and how of Trump 2.0

2025-03-25 04:05 Last Updated At：23:40

LONDON (AP) — The urgent care doctor cocked an eyebrow at Mari Santos and her American accent.

It was four days after President Donald Trump's inauguration, and Santos was a student with a stomach bug in the first weeks of an overseas semester in Glasgow, Scotland. A doctor arrived to see her after a six-hour wait. But before asking what ailed her, he said this: “Interesting time to be an American, I suppose."

Until then, Santos, 20, had not been thinking about Trump — just her 104-degree fever and concern about being sick while abroad. But the president and his triumphant return to the White House, she says, were on her physician's mind, giving the American University student an instant education in geopolitics. The lesson, as she sees it: “There's a kind of chilling in the air.”

“I knew that maybe that Europe is not in general big fan of American politics,” Santos said, “but I didn't expect it to be such like a personal thing.”

The United States and its center of gravity occupy a unique space in the international conversation. People the world over talk about America — its policies, its proclivities, its place in the world. They have for generations. They did it during the Iraq War. They did it during the first Trump administration.

And two months into Trump 2.0, at least in many European and English-speaking countries, it's happening again — sometimes even more intensely.

Answering for America under the new Trump administration is becoming a delicate experience for some of the estimated 5 million U.S. citizens living in other countries.

From Santos in Scotland to others in New Zealand, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada, Republican and Democratic expats alike told The Associated Press in recent weeks that the moment they are revealed to be American changes virtually every conversation to, in essence, “What about Trump?”

At its root, this change is about whom to trust among those thought until now to be allies, in world politics and in life. Trump, known for insisting the truth is what he says it is, is now the voice of America — not VOA, the independent news service that told the nation's story for eight decades until he silenced it March 16. The president himself has set an example in which trust is almost beside the point.

“Who do I trust? I mean, who do you trust? Do you trust anybody?” he said during an interview last month with The Spectator, when asked how much he trusts people like Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post.

What comes after the revelation that someone is American, U.S. citizens overseas say, are awkward questions, pauses and euphemisms — but almost always a reference to America under Trump in 2025.

“Before this year, the typical follow-up would be asking where exactly I’m from and what brought me to France,” said Anthony Mucia, 31, a Nebraska native who lives in Toulouse, France and has been overseas for six years. “Twice now, the first thing someone asked me was, ‘Are you glad to be in France now?’” He also gets looks that he interprets as “a bit of ‘shock’ or ‘uneasiness.’ Almost like it automatically turned into an embarrassing topic.”

What's bending these interactions, expats say, is Trump’s flurry of orders and statements that have upended 80 years of international order and spooked markets.

He’s talked about how the U.S. will “one way or the other” capture Greenland from Denmark, “take back” Panama and make Canada the 51st U.S. state. He wants to empty and develop war-battered Gaza, and has cut off U.S. aid to the world’s neediest people. He’s falsely blamed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the Russian invasion and ended a White House meeting with Zelenskyy after berating the Ukrainian leader. Trump has let Europe’s leaders know that the U.S. is not a staunch ally in facing the Russian threat. And he’s set off tariff wars with China, Canada and Mexico.

Not smoothing the American experience overseas is the backlash developing against Trump’s association with Elon Musk and Tesla, which has fueled growing boycott movements. People are joining Facebook groups to exchange ideas about how to avoid U.S. products. Feelings are especially strong across the Nordic region — particularly Denmark, where Trump’s moves have set “the Danish Viking blood boiling,” one man told The Associated Press.

So far, the interactions are less hostile than wary, Americans overseas say. But anti-U.S. sentiment is emerging as a concern on the cusp of what's expected to be a record-setting international travel season for Americans.

Jake Lamb, 32, moved from Colorado to Auckland, New Zealand in 2023. He said says he's “noticed a significant shift in the types and frequency of questions I’m asked” over the past year. Kiwis remain friendly about it, but they've been saying they might have to “hide” Lamb or vouch that he's “one of the good ones” if Trump escalates conflicts with former allies. He thinks that the good humor belies wariness.

“I am concerned that it may become difficult for some not to hold individual Americans responsible,” Lamb, a volunteer coordinator for a charity and who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris, said in an email.

Elizabeth Van Horne, 33, has lived in France since 2013. For years, she said, people would ask “why on Earth I'd come to live in France if I could live in the U.S: 'It's so beautiful, there's so much potential, so much opportunity, like living in a TV show.'”

“Now, that romanticized image has completely changed,” Van Horne, a Democrat, said in an email. Early in March, a postal worker told her it's sad to watch.

“For me,” she said, “that conversation summed it up: ‘Je suis desole pour vous’ — ‘I’m sorry for you.'”

Georganne Burke, a Syracuse, N.Y., native living in Ottawa, supported Trump in all three elections and is the chairwoman of Republicans Overseas in Canada. She's a dual citizen, which makes her something like the Peace Bridge that links the two nations in Buffalo, N.Y.

Trump's tariff war, his manner and his provocative talk about how Canada “only works” as the 51st U.S. state “has everybody's hair on fire," she said in an interview. Burke, 77, says she's received threats and had a tense talk with an anti-Trump co-worker. People ask her, “How could anyone vote for him?"

An invitation to speak about trade near the end of March, she says, came with the organizer saying that he was “pretty sure that most of the people will be polite.” Burke accepted the invitation.

She says anti-American sentiment was bad during the Iraq war under President George W. Bush in 2003. But now it's different.

“Then, it was kind of more on the politicians,” as the targets of public ire, Burke said in a recent interview. “Now, it's much more personal.”

Burke's counterpart in London, Greg Swenson of Republicans Overseas UK, says walking around as an American in another country remains more positive than negative. In interviews with media outlets, he readily acknowledges Trump can be “obnoxious.” But Swenson, 62, is an investment banker, and he says the president and America remain good for business.

“In the private capital world, which is not affected by day-to-day (market) volatility, there is just a huge amount of optimism,” Swenson said. That means, he says, that investors want to work with U.S. vendors and customers, seeking American “credibility” through “an affiliation with the president.”

As for what people overseas think of Americans right now: A survey of social media, neighbors and others shows plenty are curious and concerned. When an American dad posted on Reddit his worry that his family won't be welcomed in Ireland, an Irish dad who asked the AP to identify him by his Reddit handle responded this way:

“A lot of people like me are really, really alienated and angry at the US and Americans,” wrote MDMB13. "But the good news is we’re Irish so you’ll never know because (we) bury our feelings in a far-off place and let them fester over decades.” He ended his comment with a smile emoji.

Utah bans fluoride in public drinking water, a first in the US

2025-03-29 04:09 Last Updated At：04:11

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, pushing past opposition from dentists and national health organizations who warn the move will lead to medical problems that disproportionately affect low-income communities.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation Thursday barring cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems.

Florida, Ohio and South Carolina are considering similar measures, while in New Hampshire, North Dakota and Tennessee, lawmakers have rejected them. A bill in Kentucky to make fluoridation optional stalled in the state Senate.

The American Dental Association sharply criticized the Utah law, saying it showed “wanton disregard for the oral health and well-being of their constituents.”

Cavities are the most common chronic childhood disease, the ADA noted. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“As a father and a dentist, it is disheartening to see that a proven, public health policy, which exists for the greater good of an entire community’s oral health, has been dismantled based on distorted pseudoscience,” the association’s president, Denver dentist Brett Kessler, said in a statement.

The ban, effective May 7, brings into the mainstream concerns over fluoridation that for decades were considered fringe opinions.

It comes weeks after water fluoridation skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as U.S. health secretary. Kennedy said in November that the administration of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump would advise water systems nationwide to remove fluoride.

Cox, who grew up and raised his own children in a community without fluoridated water, compared it recently to being medicated by the government. Utah lawmakers also said the ban was a matter of personal health choice and that putting fluoride in water is too expensive.

Florida’s surgeon general last year recommended against community water fluoridation because of what he called its “neuropsychiatric risk.” That guidance came after a federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.

Federal officials determined last year “with moderate confidence” that there was a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. But the National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water. The amounts of fluoride that can be added to water based on federal guidelines are below levels considered problematic, Kessler said.

The National Institutes of Health says very high doses of fluoride that can cause sickness are typically the result of rare accidents, such as the unintentional swallowing of fluoride used by dentists’ offices or supplements inappropriately given to children. The agency says it’s “virtually impossible” to get a toxic dose from fluoride that’s added to water or toothpaste at standard levels.

However, communities sometimes exceed the recommended levels because fluoride occurs naturally at higher levels in certain water sources. In 2011, officials reported that 2 in 5 U.S. adolescents had at least mild tooth streaking or spottiness because of too much fluoride.

Since 2015, federal health officials have recommended a fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter of water. For five decades before that, the recommended upper range was 1.2 milligrams per liter. The World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5 milligrams per liter.

The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the past century: one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent tooth decay on a large scale.

In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and they continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. More than 200 million people in the U.S., or almost two-thirds of the population, receive fluoridated public water.

Fluoride in drinking water can reduce cavities by at least 25% for all age groups, according to the Utah Dental Association. Opponents of the Utah legislation to limit fluoridation warn it will have a disproportionately negative effect on low-income residents who may rely on fluoridated water as their only source of preventative dental care.

The sponsor of the Utah legislation, Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius, acknowledged fluoride has benefits, but said it was an issue of “individual choice” to not have it in the water.

Out of the 484 Utah water systems that reported data in 2024, only 66 fluoridated their water, an Associated Press analysis showed. The largest was that in the state’s biggest municipality, Salt Lake City.

Utah in 2022 ranked 44th in the nation for the percentage of residents that receive fluoridated water, according to the CDC data.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming.