Two countries have retaliated after being added to Donald Trump’s ever-growing travel ban list.
Trump has long been clamping down on who can enter the US and earlier this month announced that even more countries were facing full or partial travel bans, bringing the total number of affected places to 39.
The travel ban means that there are visa restrictions on nationals from certain countries. Those facing full travel bans are: Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Laos, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria.
Meanwhile, partial travel bans will be enforced on: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
These restrictions will come into force tomorrow (January 1, 2026).
The White House has said of the restrictions brought in by Trump: “It is the president’s duty to take action to ensure that those seeking to enter our country will not harm the American people.”
In the wake of the travel bans, Mali and Burkina Faso are now banning Americans from entering the two countries.
The Malian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement, per The Guardian: “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.”
In a separate statement echoing similar sentiments, Burkina Faso’s foreign affairs minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said his government was acting on the ‘principle of reciprocity’, BBC News reports.
Mali and Burkina Faso follow Niger in bringing in restrictions on US citizens. In recent days the country declared that it was permanently prohibiting the granting of visas to all American nationals and their entry into the country, the Nigerian Press Agency (ANP) said.
A diplomatic source told the ANP (via APA News): “Niger is completely and permanently prohibiting the issuance of visas to all US citizens and indefinitely banning entry to its territory for nationals of the United States.”
Meanwhile, back in June, Chad announced it was suspending visa issuance to US citizens after it was added to an initial list that banned citizens of 12 countries from coming to America.