Shortly before 6pm local time on Friday night at the Los Angeles Stadium, the actor who plays Ted Lasso – the fictional manager of a fake team in a falsely heartwarming version of football – will tell hundreds of millions of TV viewers tuning in to watch the start of the American leg of the Fifa World Cup that football unites the world.

In an interesting twist, the actor Jason Sudeikis will do this at a time when the World Cup host is simultaneously bombing the second-ranked country in Group G, having recently murdered its head of state. The message of unity is one likely to be heard by the US president, Donald Trump, who has initiated six military conflicts in his second term, and whose brutally divisive immigration policies have now led to the barring of Omar Artan, the reigning African referee of the year.

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of “grotesque stupidity” and desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy after he sought to link immigration to the D-day anniversary, saying Europe was facing a different “invasion” of its shores.

Speaking in north-west France on Saturday to mark the 82nd anniversary of the D-day landings, Hegseth seized on the moment marking the wartime liberation of Europe to reiterate the US administration’s longstanding attack on European immigration policies.

Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the number of international travelers visiting the United States has fallen by more than 5 percent. The number of Canadians visiting the country has plummeted by more than 20 percent.

All told, the fall-off in international tourism has translated into a decline of $8.4 billion in tourists’ spending in the U.S.

El secretario de Defensa de Estados Unidos, Pete Hegseth, se ha sumado este miércoles a la campaña de presión de su Gobierno contra el régimen en Cuba, al visitar a las tropas de su país en la base naval de Guantánamo, en el este de la isla, y arengarlas para que estén listas ante “cualquier posible contingencia”.