Mali and Burkina Faso have banned US citizens from entering their countries in retaliation to Donald Trump’s decision last month to ban citizens from those countries entering the US.
The two neighboring West African countries announced the new rules in seperate statements. On December 16, the Trump administration announced it was expanding travel restrictions to an additional 20 countries and the Palestinian Authority, doubling the number of nations affected by sweeping limits.
People who already have visas, are lawful permanent residents of the US or have certain visa categories such as diplomats or athletes, or whose entry into the country is believed to serve the U.S. interest, are all exempt from the restrictions. The proclamation said the changes go into effect on Jan. 1.
“In accordance with the principle of reciprocity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation informs the national and international community that, with immediate effect, the Government of the Republic of Mali will apply the same conditions and requirements to US nationals as those imposed on Malian citizens,” the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Burkina Faso’s foreign affairs minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said his government was acting on the “principle of reciprocity.”
In June, President Donald Trump announced that citizens of 12 countries would be banned from coming to the United States and those from seven others would face restrictions. The decision resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term.
At the time the ban included Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen and heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Trump’s administration announced it was expanding the list of countries whose citizens are banned from entering the U.S. to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria. The administration also fully restricted travel on people with Palestinian Authority-issued travel documents, the latest US travel restriction against Palestinians. South Sudan was also facing significant travel restrictions already.
The Trump administration said in its announcement that many of the countries from which it was restricting travel had “widespread corruption, fraudulent or unreliable civil documents and criminal records” that made it difficult to vet their citizens for travel to the U.S.
It also said some countries had high rates of people overstaying their visas, refused to take back their citizens whom the U.S. wished to deport or had a “general lack of stability and government control,” which made vetting difficult. It also cited immigration enforcement, foreign policy and national security concerns for the move
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