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Why do you assume that the information non-Americans believe about the US is accurate?

It seems to me that there is a fair amount of misinformation which gets spread about the US. For example, many non-Americans seem to believe that school shootings are a significant cause of death here.

Furthermore, your proposed scheme creates an incentive to be non-transparent and thus not vulnerable to critique. By closing off information about your country, you can say to any critic: "Your critique is incorrect, because you lack information." Thus creating a reputational advantage for countries which successfully clamp down on the flow of information.

Is that your desired outcome? You want a world where criticizing the US can no longer be done as soon as Trump kicks out all of the foreign journalists and stops the information flow?

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I'm not advocating for less transparency.

My argument is that with less transparent public affairs, it is much harder from the outside to understand what may be going on.

One can note the effects of certain measures without cherishing the schemes.

For that matter I'm personally convinced more transparency is overall a net benefit. It helps the public at large appreciate situations. But my preference, and the detrimental vs beneficial aspects of a system are irrelevant to the argument I made.

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The information believed by Americans isn't any better, anyway. We're closer to the source of information, but we're also closer to the source of misinformation. It's very difficult to discuss anything remotely political with people (I want to say "these days" but I'm not confident this is a new thing) because there's little agreement about basic facts.
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