There is an age-old question, will you catch more flies with honey or vinegar? We know of course that you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and this expression has lasted for so many centuries because it is a useful metaphor for everything in life.
David Ricardo was one of my favorite economists and abolitionists. He wrote about the importance of free trade and about how reciprocity is a fool’s errand. He proved mathematically that even if a country has high tariffs on you it does not make sense to respond in kind, and you will end up hurting yourself more by implementing high tariffs on the other country. So the best thing to do if someone is hitting you is not to hit back. There are more intelligent ways of getting revenge.
One of the most common forms of tariffs is the travel visa. We should approach visas in the same way. If one country implements a visa on your citizens, do not respond in kind, just like with other tariffs this only hurts you. It makes sense to extend visa-free travel to other countries even if they will not respond to you with a visa-free policy.
The highest factor for a passport having travel freedom is having a high GDP per capita. So the best thing to do is improve your economy. The way to do this is to fight corruption and protect the rights of journalists. Countries with the highest GDP per capita growth adjusted for inflation from 2000-2023 are Guyana, China, Armenia, and Georgia. Armenia and Georgia cracked down on corruption significantly leading to democratization and growth. Guyana struck oil. China reformed its economic system allowing the liberalization of the economy while maintaining its authoritarian government.
Here are the results of these four countries:
| Country | Visa free for passport | Visa free to enter | Overall Score | GDP per capita | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Armenia | 58.0 | 67.0 | 5.42 | 3614.688357 |
| 58 | China | 68.0 | 41.0 | 2.12 | 8123.180873 |
| 102 | Georgia | 103.0 | 105.0 | 5.20 | 3865.785693 |
| 119 | Guyana | 77.0 | 59.0 | 6.26 | 4529.139412 |
Simply becoming rich is not the only way to get expanded travel freedom as I explored yesterday. Georgia has achieved remarkable travel freedom by having an open visa policy. The other three countries have average travel freedom.
My argument is that visa policy and trade policy work the same way. If you are a country that hasn’t reached full democracy high-income status yet, there is no reason for you to use a reciprocal visa policy as a requirement for granting visa-free access to your country. You only end up shooting yourself in the foot and you don’t end up expanding travel freedom for your citizens.
Waiting for the other country to make a move ends up with a game of chicken. It’s ineffective.
The better way to expand travel freedom for your citizens is to allow people from safe countries to travel to your country without a visa, as Georgia did. Crackdown on corruption and improve your economy. Improve the education level of your citizens so you are competitive in the modern economy. Brazilians now have more travel freedom than Monacans as a result of expanding visa-free access without reciprocity and then most countries then respond in kind. The one mistake Brazil has made is to revoke visa-free access if the country does not reciprocate, but by being the first country to expand visa-free travel and then putting diplomatic pressure on the other country, and then applying diplomatic pressure through lobbying, Brazil has managed to successfully expand their travel freedom despite having a relatively low GDP per capita and mean years of schooling of only 8 years. With these issues, they are still a fully functional democracy. This strategy has worked for Brazil.
One strategy that countries should attempt is along with internal reforms which clearly work, to have a campaign to convince citizens of the host nation to pressure their government into expanding visa-free travel. This worked for Poland in joining NATO in the 1990s by convincing ethnic Poles in swing states to lobby politicians of both parties to support their accession to NATO. It should also work for travel freedom.
Brazil and Georgia have proven the adage that you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
What next
The first obvious step in my opinion is to end electronic visas from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Seychelles, and the United States. The United Kingdom and the European Union need to scrap their plans to implement eVisas for countries that do not need them today. This will only erode travel freedom around the world.
This is so obvious to me after studying this for many years. These policies are government waste, provide no useful benefit, and create significant problems.
There are a bunch of countries in Oceania that allow fewer than 50 countries to travel there without a visa. They should expand visa-free access to the European Union.
Here’s what gets interesting…
If you become a little less accurate and say that an ETA is not a visa (Wikipedia however disagrees) and you believe that filling out a form and paying a couple bucks is not a visa (even though you are wrong) then there remain only two high-income democracies in the world which still exempt fewer than 50 countries from needing an expensive visa. Those two countries are Australia and the United States. With this incorrect definition, we have the following results:
{'High democracy': {'High GDP per capita': {'Less powerful passport': 0,
'More powerful passport': {'Liberal visa policy': {'Anglo': 4,
'Not Anglo': 38},
'Restrictive visa policy': {'Anglo': 2,
'Not Anglo': 0}}},
'Low GDP per capita': {'Less powerful passport': {'Liberal visa policy': 0,
'Restrictive visa policy': {'Anglo': 0,
'Not Anglo': 4}},
'More powerful passport': {'Liberal visa policy': 41,
'Restrictive visa policy': {'Anglo': 0,
'Not Anglo': 6}}}},
'Low democracy': {'High GDP per capita': {'Less powerful passport': 0,
'More powerful passport': {'Liberal visa policy': 5,
'Restrictive visa policy': 3}},
'Low GDP per capita': {'Less powerful passport': {'Liberal visa policy': 5,
'Restrictive visa policy': 28},
'More powerful passport': {'Liberal visa policy': 15,
'Restrictive visa policy': 16}}}}
No matter how you slice and dice the data, the United States and Australia are the most conservative high-income democracies in the world. Some obvious countries should be added to the visa-free lists for these Anglo countries. Assuming these countries will not get rid of their pork barrel (erm… ETA) I propose the following:
- Bahamas, Barbados, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and the Solomon Islands need visa-free access to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
- Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania, and the Vatican need visa-free access to the United States.
- The Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau need visa-free access to Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Making these changes would bring the visa policies of these four countries in line with each other. On top of this, it would mean that every developed democracy would allow over 50 nationalities to visit their country either visa-free or with an ETA.
Also, how can CANZUK happen with misaligned visa policies? The United Kingdom’s visa policy is already mostly in line with the European Union, let alone the mismatches between Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The answer is simple. CANZUK is fetch. It is never going to happen.
Jokes aside, there are real benefits to aligning visa policies. It saves taxpayer money from visa processing. It allows more tourists to visit. Altogether, it is a benefit to the host country as well as the visitor’s country.
Source:
https://github.com/ChengCPU/visa-map?tab=readme-ov-file
World Bank DataBank
Economist Intelligence Unit