President Donald Trump’s recent insistence that protesters during the FIFA World Cup need to be “reasonable” or risk getting into trouble with the law is yet another demonstration of Trump acting as if he presides over a kingdom instead of a democracy. And it’s certainly not going to help reverse the plunge in tourism tied to his treatment of immigrants.
At a meeting of the World Cup task force at the White House on Tuesday, a reporter asked Trump, “Should people who have taken part in, for example, pro-Palestinian protests across the world, be concerned about being able to join the World Cup and watch it here in the U.S.?”
In the U.S., the government is not endowed with the authority to declare protests 'reasonable' or not.
While the reporter seemed to be asking whether visitors might be vetted based on their political views, Trump appeared to respond with a comment about allowing protests at the global soccer tournament, which will take place in summer 2026 in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
“Well, I don’t know what you mean by that. ... I think people are allowed to protest,” Trump said. “You have to do it in a reasonable manner. Not necessarily friendly, but reasonable. Otherwise [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] will come after you and you’re gonna have a big problem.”
First, in the U.S., the government is not endowed with the authority to declare protests “reasonable” or not. Free speech in the U.S. is not absolute — you can get in trouble, for example, for threatening someone’s life or calling for imminent violence. But a “reasonable” speech criterion would be incompatible with democratic speech since “reasonable” is highly subjective and would serve as a dangerously capacious pretext for restricting speech. It’s a critical democratic norm that people are rightly entitled to hold “unreasonable” views and express themselves in ways that some might consider “unreasonable.”
The prospect of Trump as an arbiter of “reasonable” speech is particularly disturbing. While Trump has dubiously tried to claim the mantle of free speech defender, his second term has been defined by an extraordinary crackdown on speech, including expelling immigrants for First Amendment-protected speech and trying to muzzle universities and regulate their research. The Trump administration has exploited obscure immigration law and civil rights law as a means of censoring pro-Palestinian speech.
It would be a fool’s errand for Americans (or non-Americans) inclined to protest during the World Cup — or any other time — to anticipate what Trump considers “reasonable,” since he clearly considers the content of speech he opposes to be unreasonable.
The World Cup, whose final match is by far the most widely watched sporting event in the world, is a natural site for protests. Players will often use gestures and attire to express solidarity with marginalized communities, alignment with social movements or criticism of governments. The tournament itself can also become a natural stage for protests to express grievances about the host country — like the anti-World Cup protests in Brazil during the run-up to the tournament and during the tournament itself that were in part about grievances tied to poor social services.
It’s reasonable to ask: Will Trump use the pretext of security to try to quash dissent, pre-emptively or in real time, based on whether he deems it “reasonable”? Would he try to pressure FIFA to similarly regulate players’ and teams’ expression?
When I attended the World Cup in Russia in 2018, local Russians told me they believed the authorities were unusually accommodating of the often disorderly atmosphere on the streets, which they attributed to the Russian government’s desire to project a more friendly image of the country than is typically accorded to it around the world.
It’s a form of “sportswashing” — when governments try to divert attention from their misdeeds through hosting lavish sporting events. These tournaments, which draw millions of visitors, are pivotal opportunities for host countries to project “soft power” and make an impression on tourists and journalists that might disrupt previous narratives about a country.
Trump appears to be positioning the U.S. in just the opposite fashion. In anticipation of the tournament, Trump is floating vague, undemocratic criteria for what speech he will “allow.”
To be sure, the vast majority of people who are looking to attend the World Cup — whether American or foreign — aren’t going to be interested in protests. But this kind of language isn’t going to encourage tourism, particularly as reports circulate of tourists being detained and treated harshly while trying to enter the U.S. and foreign governments issuing travel advisories regarding travel to the U.S., including advice to delete social media on phones. And it still introduces a variable that could, if the atmosphere turns repressive, conceivably accelerate the global perception that the U.S. is sliding toward authoritarianism. That growing perception wouldn’t be good for the United States’ global credibility or its economy. But it would be accurate.
