Trump Considering Adding Countries To Travel Ban: WOW

Intro

Just last week, I wrote about how Trump has placed travel bans on 19 nations (12 full, 7 partial) across the world, ranging from Afghanistan to Myanmar. I also mentioned how he had left out the DRC, but that might be changing...

The Details

Multiple sources online (Reuters, BBC) have come out and said that Trump has now considered expanding his original 19-country ban by adding 36 more, making a total of 55 countries across the world.

I'll save my thoughts for later, but here are the new proposed countries:

• Angola

• Antigua and Barbuda

• Benin

• Bhutan

• Burkina Faso

• Cabo Verde

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Côte d'Ivoire

• Democratic Republic of Congo

• Djibouti

• Dominica

• Ethiopia

• Egypt

• Gabon

• The Gambia

• Ghana

• Kyrgyzstan

• Liberia

• Malawi

• Mauritania

• Niger

• Nigeria

• Saint Kitts and Nevis

• Saint Lucia

• São Tomé and Príncipe

• Senegal

• South Sudan

• Syria

• Tanzania

• Tonga

• Tuvalu

• Uganda

• Vanuatu

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe

Juba is a beautiful capital city, in its own way

The memo by the White House stated that the department listed the following reasons for adding these countries to the list:

Keep in mind, not all issues apply to every country on the list

• Poor government cooperation in verifying identities.

• Unreliable passports or security issues with travel documents.

• Refusal to take back their citizens who were deported from the U.S.

• Visa overstays.

• Links to terrorism, antisemitism, or anti-American behavior.

My Thoughts

I don't usually speak out on matters like this and provide my thoughts, but I can imagine that this might actually begin impacting US travelers going forward, much like how Chad has now suspended visas to those with a US passport.

My honest opinion is that I have always been for open borders for vacation/tourism. I understand that everyone has their opinion, and you are more than inclined to disagree, but people should be able to visit other countries. If they aren't, and one country goes against it, I also believe that reciprocal travel bans are more than fair here. I would also argue that I have seen firsthand (In Yemen) that it is very difficult for people to not just get a visa for the US, but just get an appointment.

Keep in mind, I am also aware that people often overstay their visas in the US, coupled with the fact that some people will also work on a tourist visa. This isn't solely to say this happens in the USA, as it was recently the case with an Australian man in Thailand.

The moral of the story here is that this could cause some backlash going forward if Trump were to go ahead with it. I don't think all 55 nations will implement travel bans, but I would not be surprised to see some.

Final Thoughts

The White House has recently come out suggesting that they are thinking about adding 36 countries to the already included 19 on the Travel Ban for those who can enter the USA. In my opinion, the list is quite extensive and includes the likes of St Lucia and Ghana, two of which surprised me the most. This could have some kickback for those traveling on a US passport in the future. Let's see what happens.

I've gotta say, with Chad banning US citizens from entering, this is going to be interesting to see how I am going to visit every country in the world.