Mali, Burkina Faso ban US citizens in response to Trump travel bans | Migration News

The West African countries say the bans are equivalent to those imposed on their citizens by the United States.

Mali and Burkina Faso have announced their plan to apply reciprocal visa bans to citizens of the United States, weeks after President Donald Trump included the West African countries in an expanded travel ban list.

In separate letters shared late on Tuesday, both countries emphasised that the new measures were aimed at applying the same rules to Americans travelling to their countries as their citizens face when travelling to the US.

Mali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said US citizens travelling to the country would experience “the same conditions and requirements as those imposed by the American authorities on Malian citizens entering the United States”.

It added that the changes were being introduced as “a matter of reciprocity and with immediate effect”.

Burkina Faso said it was applying “equivalent visa measures to citizens of the United States of America” and emphasised that it “remains committed to mutual respect, the sovereign equality of States, and the principle of reciprocity in its international relations”.

The announcements came after Trump said on December 16 he was adding seven more countries, as well as the holders of Palestinian Authority documents, to a list of countries whose nationals were “fully” restricted and limited from entering the US.

Burkina Faso and Mali were among the countries added to the list, all of which were either Arab or African nations.

Trump said at the time that the changes were being introduced to meet US “foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism objectives”.

A section explaining the reasons for the ban on nationals from Burkina Faso said the US Department of State had found “terrorist organisations continue to plan and conduct terrorist activities throughout Burkina Faso”.

It also cited visa overstays and a historic refusal to “accept back” nationals deported from the US.

In relation to Mali, Trump’s announcement said the State Department had found “armed conflict between the Malian government and armed groups is common throughout the country and that “terrorist organisations operate freely in certain areas of Mali”.

In total, the new additions brought the total to 19 countries plus Palestine, the countries banned under Trump, who also introduced similar travel bans during his first presidency.

Together with Niger, which was also included in the list of new countries banned by the US in mid-December, Mali and Burkina Faso have recently sought to distance themselves from Western countries while working together in a new grouping known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

All three countries are led by military leaders who have forged closer ties with Russia in recent years, while kicking out French and US soldiers previously stationed there.

Mali has welcomed Russian forces, including about 1,500 personnel from the Wagner mercenary group and roughly 1,000 fighters from the Kremlin-controlled paramilitary group Africa Corps.

At a recent Sahel summit in Bamako, Mali, the three countries announced the launch of a joint military battalion aimed at fighting armed groups across the region.

However, they have struggled to improve the security situation at home amid rising attacks from separatist groups as well as armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).