I go to a lot of tech conferences — 13 in 2025 — and many of those I attend are outside the US; several are in London, one is in Amsterdam, another in Paris, and two in Tokyo.
Wherever I went this past year, when we weren’t talking about AI, Linux, the cloud, or open-source software, the top non-tech topic for non-Americans involved the sweeping changes that have occurred since President Donald J. Trump returned to office last January. The conversations generally ended with something like this: “I’m not taking a job or going to a conference in the United States.”
Honestly, who can blame them?