Sweden Today:

Fewer Swedes traveling to the U.S. Sweden checks everyone at the border. Doubling up Swedish forces in Iraq.  

  • Interest in traveling to the U.S. has dropped significantly since January according to a major tour operator in Sweden.

  • Fewer Swedes traveling to the U.S.
    Interest in traveling to the U.S. has dropped significantly since January. Swedish travel agencies have noticed a 40 percent drop in travel to New York in the past four weeks, and a 10 percent drop to the U.S. in general. Tommy Swanson, whose specialty for nearly 40 years has been to organize trips from Sweden to the U.S., says his clients don’t feel welcome in the U.S. because of President Trump’s attitude toward the rest of the world. “We have noticed that the interest in travelling to the U.S. has declined since he was installed,” he said to Swedish Radio.

  • As of 2016 and continuously, for the first time in 50 years, the Swedish passport — or some other form of ID — is needed for travel between Denmark and Sweden.

  • Sweden checks more IDs
    Among the EU countries with temporary permission to carry out border controls, Sweden checks more IDs than any of them. The head of Sweden's national border police says it is actually difficult to compare the countries because Swedish police check practically every vehicle, while other countries only do random checks. But out of the millions of checks since border control began in Sweden in the autumn of 2015, only 300 per month involved asylum seekers. The border controls have been extended temporarily with the permission of the European Commission several times since, and are now in place until May 2017.

  • A Swedish soldier stands guard at a camp in Northern Afghanistan. Sweden doubles up on forces in Iraq.

  • Doubling up Swedish forces in Iraq
    The Swedish government has submitted a proposal to send up to 70 more military personnel to Iraq to provide local security forces with training. This will double the number of Swedish experts there, where Sweden continues to support the U.S.-led efforts to train Iraqi troops. The Swedish government also expressed readiness to increase the number of military to 150 to support evacuation operations.