I don't blame them. I'm thinking about doing the same thing for a few of my web sites that have very local content.
The company that sells the advertising on those sites says non-US traffic dilutes the value of the ads, and I'd get 3-5% higher CPM if I filtered non-US traffic.
I've kept them open until now because I like to check on the sites when I travel, but GDPR might be the incentive I need to pull the plug.