Trump imposes US travel ban on seven African countries 

President Donald Trump has banned citizens from seven African countries from travelling to the United States, citing risks from terrorism and the prevalence of visa overstays. 

From 9 June, citizens of Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan will be banned from travelling to the US – part of a 12-strong list of countries worldwide facing the measure. 

Burundi, Sierra Leone and Togo are among seven nations worldwide to be subjected to partial restrictions.

The individual reasons for countries’ designations are spelled out in a presidential proclamation, which cites visa overstays for countries like Equatorial Guinea and Republic of Congo and terror concerns emanating from countries like Somalia and Libya. 

In a video on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that an analysis of “high-risk regions” overseen by secretary of state Marco Rubio found “the large-scale presence of terrorists, failure to cooperate on visa security, inability to verify travellers’ identities, inadequate record keeping of criminal histories and persistently high rates of illegal visa overstays and other things” in the targeted countries. 

“The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas – we don’t want them,” he said. 

Trump said that the strength of the restrictions applied “depends on the severity of the threat posed” and said the list would be subject to revision based on whether “material improvements are made”. 

Somalia, which the proclamation says the US government has identified as a “terrorist safe haven”, insisted that it was ready to work with Trump on his security concerns. 

“Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,” Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the United States, said in a statement.

The move represents a broadening of the travel restrictions Trump introduced in his first term which focused on Muslim-majority countries in Africa and elsewhere.  

The president insisted those restrictions were “one of our most successful policies” and had prevented terror attacks on US soil. 

Further strain on US-Africa relations 

But the move represents a further worsening of US relations with Africa. In April, Trump slapped tariffs on scores of African countries as part of his ‘Liberation Day’ overhaul of US trade relations – with the hardest-hit nations being Lesotho, whose goods will be hit with a tariff of 50%; Madagascar (47%); and Mauritius (40%). Those and other tariffs have been reduced to a 10% universal levy for three months pending further negotiations. But African countries fear the impact of the tariff regime and the possible spillover effects for Africa and its major trading partners like China. 

Trump’s high-profile ambush of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office in May, in which he pushed discredited theories about a “white genocide” in the country, has further strained ties.