What Trump's travel ban is really intended to achieve

Telegraph

05-06-2025

Donald Trump's decision to bar the citizens of a dozen countries from entering the United States is his most sweeping visa ban yet.
By casting his net wider than ever, the US president is ostensibly protecting Americans from foreigners who pose a threat to homeland security.
Countries that do not properly vet their citizens or whose nationals overstay their visas were selected for outright bans, while seven other states were subjected to restrictions that would prevent as many as 90 per cent of their nationals from visiting the US.
The move is a resurrection of a policy from his first term, but Mr Trump has considerably broadened his scope, imposing a much wider, if less draconian, set of measures — one that reflects a desire to overcome future legal challenges while pacifying his supporters.
His 2017 executive order, which went through several iterations, saw a ban on travellers from seven nations with large Muslim majorities, earning adulation from his supporters. By contrast, just eight of the 19 countries hit by outright or partial bans under his latest edict have Muslim majorities.
Mr Trump's tour of the Middle East last month, during which he cemented friendships with a string of rich Gulf potentates, may be a factor.
More likely, though, the US president is simply being more strategic than in his first term. By taking aim at non-Muslim states alongside the usual suspects in the Middle East and Horn of Africa, he is making the legal challenges he faced the first time around less likely to succeed.
The White House has been careful to justify its choice of targets, saying the countries listed pose security threats either because their nationals tend to overstay visas or because they have a significant 'terrorist presence'.
With an eye on the courts, Mr Trump has also carved out exemptions even for states facing an outright ban: Afghans who worked with the US military, or persecuted minorities in Iran will, in theory, still be allowed in.
This will allow Mr Trump to claim a significant victory on an issue important not just to his base, but beyond. Securing US borders is a central plank of his America First ideology. The visa ban is one element of this strategy, complementing a range of steps on immigration — from raids to detain migrants, to mass deportations and restrictions on international students.
The ban will have real consequences. Last year, the State Department issued 170,000 visas to the citizens of countries facing an outright ban.
The list of affected countries is far broader geographically than in Mr Trump's first term, with nine drawn from sub-Saharan Africa, three from the Americas, three from the Middle East and four from elsewhere in Asia.
Of the countries reprieved this time, two offer an instructive insight into Mr Trump's shifting geopolitical priorities.
North Korea and Syria omitted from list
North Korea, added to the initial list later in 2017, is the first omission. In his first term, Mr Trump expended significant diplomatic capital in a fruitless quest to force Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear arsenal. North Korea's inclusion may have been part of a pressure campaign designed to force concessions.
That having failed, there is little value now in a symbolic measure like a visa ban. Very few North Koreans ever come to the United States, after all.
The second is Syria, one of the main targets of the first ban because of the flood of refugees fleeing its civil war during Mr Trump's first term.
But the war is over, the dictator Bashar al-Assad has been toppled and the White House has taken significant steps – over the objections of Israel but to the delight of most Arab states – to end Syria's isolation.
Russia was floated as ban candidate
Laying aside concerns about the new Syrian government's jihadi past, Mr Trump met President Ahmed al-Sharaa during his Middle East tour and announced an end to US sanctions on Damascus. Syria's exemption from the ban is further evidence of its accelerating rehabilitation.
Other countries have remained on the banned list for more obvious reasons. Libya, Somalia and Yemen are all conflict-ridden with a large jihadi presence.
In other cases, diplomatic factors may be at play. Iran has been included again – presumably to increase diplomatic pressure for a nuclear deal. Removing it from the list could be an inducement the Trump administration hopes to dangle to extract concessions from Tehran.
Russia was floated in March as a possible candidate but avoided the final list – despite the threat posed by Russian sleeper operatives in the US.
But Mr Trump, whose affinity with Moscow is well known, has no wish to alienate Vladimir Putin while he hopes for a peace deal with Ukraine. Including Russia would also have triggered pushback from Moscow's allies on the American right.
The most puzzling entries are some of the countries whose citizens are facing a ban for the first time. Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo – not to be confused with its larger neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is in talks with Washington over a critical minerals deal – are hardly obvious candidates for Mr Trump's ire.
The three may not have cooperated sufficiently in accepting nationals deported from the US but none poses a more serious security threat than nearby states. Chad's neighbours in the African Sahel – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – are military dictatorships that have lost swathes of territory to jihadist groups, but escaped without a visa ban.
Immediate answers are not obvious. But it is worth remembering that decision-making in the Trump administration can be arbitrary. Under the 'Liberation Day' tariffs announced in April – and later suspended – countries were hit with different rates based on rudimentary trade calculations.
It is possible that some of the African states now on the visa ban list have suffered a similar fate. They may also serve to camouflage accusations of anti-Muslim bias. And as low-profile countries unfamiliar to most Americans, the risk of diplomatic blowback is small.