LOS ANGELES — Hungarian-born pianist András Schiff announced last week that he was canceling all of his upcoming U.S. performances for the 2025-26 season “due to the recent and unprecedented political changes in the United States.”

His choice to avoid American soil in protest of what has been unfolding under the Trump administration was not without precedent. In late February, German violinist Christian Tetzlaff returned to Berlin after a performance in Chicago and told the New York Times that while in America he felt “like a child watching a horror film.” He then canceled an eight-city U.S. tour with his eponymous quartet, including a stop at Irvine Barclay Theatre in Orange County, as well as performances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, which is experiencing its own Trump-driven changes.

Schiff also had a Southern California stop on his schedule —at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced that it would replace him at a later date on the calendar with Yefim Bronfman. Schiff’s statement about his U.S. boycott was unequivocal in its admonition of current America politics.

“Some people might say, ‘Just shut up and play.’ I cannot, in good conscience, do that,” he wrote. “We do not live in an ivory tower where the arts are untouched by society. Arts and politics, arts and society are inseparable. Therefore, as artists, we must react to the horrors and injustices of this world. Have we learned nothing from the course of history — as recently as Europe in the 1930s? Perhaps not.”

More cancellations are likely ahead, both for political reasons and because artist visas may be much harder to come by under the current administration. Extreme visa fee hikes had been implemented before Trump took office, and difficulties facing visiting artists are only accelerating. Scrutiny about who enters the country is increasing, and procedural delays are becoming common as the federal workforce is stripped down under Elon Musk’s DOGE.

At the end of February, the U.S. government ordered a visa ban on transgender athletes wanting to enter the U.S. for sports events, and it may only be a matter of time until such a ban extends to others seeking entrance, including artists.

New policies, along with Trump’s actions toward traditional allies like Canada and Mexico, are also chilling tourism in general. According to the research firm Tourism Economics, visits to the U.S. are expected to decline by 5.1% this year, resulting in a $64 billion loss for the domestic tourism industry. Surely a lot of those tourists attend Broadway shows and other arts and culture events on their vacations, school trips and business visits.

As the Trump era continues, the U.S. may find itself losing much of what has made it colorful and successful. The visiting artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, scientists and thinkers who once flocked to the shores in times of peace — and when their own countries were lost to fascism — may choose to share their gifts and knowledge with others, eschewing U.S. boundaries altogether.

“The American people have spoken — and we have heard them. Yes, indeed, there is a ‘new sheriff in town.’ Which has made it a very different ‘town’ — one that some of us no longer wish to visit. It is no longer obligatory,” Schiff said in his statement.

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