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”.
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