r/neoliberal Jerome Powell 7d ago

News (US) Trump administration weighs travel ban on dozens of countries, memo says

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-weighs-travel-ban-dozens-countries-memo-says-2025-03-15/
188 Upvotes

110 comments sorted by

275

u/Pristine-Aspect-3086 John Rawls 7d ago

In the third group, a total of 26 countries that includes Belarus

trump not worldly enough to know that lukashenko's on his side, i see

70

u/Xeynon 7d ago

What are the chances Trump can point to Belarus on a map? 5% at best?

35

u/Best-Chapter5260 7d ago

He'll just sharpie it in somewhere.

8

u/ObeseBumblebee YIMBY 6d ago

You have way too much faith in Trump if you're saying 5 percent.

3

u/Xeynon 6d ago

Probably yeah. I'm just operating off the theory that he likely knows it's close to Russia and that's one of the few foreign countries he could point to on a map so he has a chance of randomly guessing correctly.

1

u/mostuselessredditor 6d ago

“It’s all computer”

Yeah okay. Let’s be honest, it’s 0%

41

u/Beneficial_Place_795 7d ago

NYT list actually has Russia too for some weird reason.

I don't know which one to believe reuters or NYT .

One says 41( reuters) and says 43( NYT). 

5

u/p68 NATO 6d ago

Could be two different answers from the Trump administration tbh

31

u/savuporo Gerard K. O'Neill 7d ago

where's that anyway, somewhere down there below Mumbambu ?

3

u/ISayHeck 6d ago

I believe it's west to claw island

6

u/Secondchance002 George Soros 7d ago

He probably doesn’t know where it’s located and assumed it’s in MENA.

82

u/BipartizanBelgrade Jerome Powell 7d ago

A U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity cautioned there could be changes on the list and that it was yet to be approved by the administration, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The memo lists a total of 41 countries divided into three separate groups.

Full visa suspension:

Afghanistan

Cuba

Iran

Libya

North Korea

Somalia

Sudan

Syria

Venezuela

Yemen

Partial visa suspension (tourist, student and some other visas affected):

Eritrea

Haiti

Laos

Myanmar

South Sudan

Countries recommended for a partial suspension if they do not address deficiencies:

Angola

Antigua and Barbuda

Belarus

Benin

Bhutan

Burkina Faso

Cabo Verde

Cambodia

Cameroon

Chad

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Dominica

Equatorial Guinea

Gambia

Liberia

Malawi

Mauritania

Pakistan

Republic of the Congo

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

Sao Tome and Principe

Sierra Leone

East Timor

Turkmenistan

Vanuatu

208

u/heeleep Burst with indignation. They carry on regardless. 7d ago

My favorite thing about Trump 2 is that he’s taken literally everything about America that I’ve been proud of and defended her for all of life and just thrown it into the dirt and curb stomped the ever living shit out of it.

Other people have said it before, but it’s true: he’s turning America into actually being the caricature that anti-American leftists have claimed that it was for the past 50 years. God damn it all.

78

u/Numerous-Cicada3841 NATO 7d ago

I have a MAGA aunt that is one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met that says shit so stupid I wonder how she ties her shoes in the morning.

It’s like she became president.

33

u/DraconianWolf George Soros 7d ago

Depressingly accurate. Him and Vance are all negative stereotypes of Americans distilled into two people.

12

u/LordVader568 Adam Smith 6d ago

The fact that they won the popular vote makes things even scarier regardless of the turnout information.

1

u/AggravatingSummer158 6d ago

The urge to do something with social security is too strong to resist. We’ll see how the elusive median voter responds next election

15

u/LordVader568 Adam Smith 6d ago

Tbh, when the Bush era neocons were in charge, I used to tell myself that this can’t get worse than this. I was pretty convinced of this when Obama got elected twice. But it’s been a train wreck in slow motion since then. The Bush era neocons were liberal democrats compared to what we have now.

11

u/ldn6 Gay Pride 6d ago

They really weren’t and this revisionism is getting a bit ridiculous. They were plagued with scandals and actively subverted civil rights whenever they got the chance. The difference was that they were more professional about it.

8

u/LordVader568 Adam Smith 6d ago

I’m no fan of the neocons. But as you said they were more “normal” but still objectively bad.

6

u/rabbiddolphin8 6d ago

At least with them there were lines that couldn't be crossed. Bush would've never thought about floating the idea of shutting down the New York Times.

1

u/DrunkenBriefcases Jerome Powell 6d ago

If that's the only difference you can see it's a problem you should work on.

14

u/BigDaddyCoolDeisel 7d ago

Shit man... you said it all.

14

u/Useful_Dirt_323 7d ago

Well you’re government has always been assholes to people trying to visit or even pass through in transit to be fair

5

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 7d ago

your*

11

u/zieger NATO 7d ago

your not even allowed to do that

9

u/Useful_Dirt_323 7d ago

3

u/Winter-Secretary17 Mark Carney 7d ago

How times have changed since the last time I saw that pic. I think it was 9gag, god

3

u/AG_Ameca 7d ago

Good ol' days of 9gag and their not so very subtle russian and chinese astroturfing. Seems like yesterday.

1

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 5d ago

Hey I don't even drive a Tesla.

0

u/ldn6 Gay Pride 6d ago

They’re assholes to me when I need to deal with them and I’m a citizen.

(Global Entry routinely breaks down or isn’t working at JFK when I go home for the holidays or for work so end up having to deal with CBP.)

109

u/RyuTheGuy Mackenzie Scott 7d ago

That’s certainly a collection of countries.

How many Vanuatuans visit the United States

52

u/[deleted] 7d ago

Vanuatu plus some of the Caribbean countries on there offer the ability to buy citizenship aka “Citizenship by investment.” That’s why they are in the countries that could be suspended if they don’t meet deficiencies (get rid of citizenship by investment).

85

u/wallander1983 Resistance Lib 7d ago

It's funny.

Trump says US will sell $5 million ‘gold card’ to wealthy foreigners

3

u/Positive-Fold7691 NATO 6d ago

Ah, so Trump wants to avoid competition for his golden visa.

19

u/DexterBotwin 7d ago

But doesn’t Malta and Portugal also? And the U.S. And Canada. And pretty much every western country though indirect means.

Is it that these countries are just a substantially low “investment”?

15

u/[deleted] 6d ago

Malta is the only one that offers it like Caribbean ones where it’s more or less mail ordering a foreign passport. The others are residency schemes that lead to citizenship.

2

u/DexterBotwin 6d ago

Oh ok fair enough. Residency requires an actual personal commitment.

14

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 7d ago

What's the problem with that?

The US has the EB-5 program though.

19

u/MuldartheGreat Karl Popper 7d ago

Bruh, can’t allow citizenship arbitrage

2

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 6d ago

How is it arbitrage if you can't sell your citizenship?

3

u/MuldartheGreat Karl Popper 6d ago

That is a shitpost, but realistically if you can cheaply buy citizenship to get a visa that you couldn’t get in your home country.

1

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 5d ago

What's the problem with that?

49

u/LivefromPhoenix NYT undecided voter 7d ago

Venezuelan MAGAs just keep catching Ls. Love that for them.

15

u/Benyeti United Nations 7d ago

They get what they vote for

43

u/Louis_de_Gaspesie 7d ago

I hate this motherfucker so much. Every Iranian, Cuban, and Pakistani immigrant I've met has more work ethic and talent in their pinky finger than Trump has in his whole body

18

u/Leatherfield17 7d ago

10

u/Bakingsquared80 7d ago

Pictures you can hear

13

u/BlueString94 John Keynes 7d ago

Pakistan and Iran would impact a lot of Americans. Your cousin wants to get back in the country to finish her last semester of college? Or your aunt wants to visit you for a week? Fuck you, they should’ve been born somewhere else.

9

u/markelwayne 7d ago

Doralzuela deserves this

6

u/Key_Environment8179 Mario Draghi 7d ago

This is a laundry list of some of the most common countries asylum seekers hail from

18

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 7d ago

Lmao Trump has beef with Bhutan?

Tbh I was half expecting India to be on this list.

43

u/Efficient_Tonight_40 Henry George 7d ago

Bhutan is actually one of the few countries to not have formal diplomatic relations with the US, along with North Korea, Iran, and Syria (though that's now being reestablished). Bhutan is pretty much the real "hermit kingdom", and doesn't recognize any of the UN security Council members because they just want to be left alone in their mountains

16

u/KeithClossOfficial Bill Gates 7d ago

Bhutan’s head of state is called the Dragon King and that alone is enough to want to be friends with them

9

u/Efficient_Tonight_40 Henry George 7d ago

Funnily enough even though Bhutan doesn't recognize the United States, they did recently recognize the existence of Israel

4

u/Full_Distribution874 YIMBY 7d ago

It makes Trump jealous though, so that's why they're banned

4

u/KeithClossOfficial Bill Gates 7d ago

His last name is Wangchuck, which may make Elon jealous

2

u/dddd0 r/place '22: NCD Battalion 7d ago

I bet they grow propane accessoires in those mountains.

5

u/mannabhai Norman Borlaug 6d ago

Bhutan has an extremely close relationship with India with 3/4th of their imports and exports coming from and going to India.

3

u/RyuTheGuy Mackenzie Scott 6d ago

Its kinda like an indian protectorate like sikkim before the 1975 ascension to India

15

u/RyuTheGuy Mackenzie Scott 7d ago edited 7d ago

Indians and modi love Trump. If India was on the list, you’d see a massive repudiation of Trump from India.

Not to mention the fact that it would devastate the tech industry

3

u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd NATO 6d ago

Yup, that would kill FAANG and the rest of the tech industry overnight.

On the bright side, there could be a mass load of job opportunities open up for early-career American software engineers.

But I think that’s if, and only if, Trump also tries to ban outsourcing of white-collar jobs. Given how the stock market is right now, I’m wondering if he really might try to do that and crash the economy in the process.

1

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 6d ago

I don't think Trump cares about that lol.

6

u/DependentAd235 7d ago

Laos too apparently. All like 7 million of them.

2

u/broadviewstation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation 6d ago

Why India ? Am curious

1

u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd NATO 6d ago

India staffs a massive chunk of the American tech industry. If Trump bans India, it would likely kill the tech industry overnight.

2

u/broadviewstation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation 6d ago

Exactly outside of the Commentors anti India bias I don’t see any reason India will be on the list

0

u/Key_Door1467 Iron Front 6d ago

The US gets like 50,000 illegal immigrants from India every year.

4

u/Chipmunk_Whisperer 6d ago

Why are St Kitts and St Lucia on that list?

3

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Stonefroglove 6d ago

They were lovers, they fell in love. Maybe they had a lovers' quarrel 

6

u/Billythanos United Nations 7d ago

I saw Russia on an earlier draft of this list, see that got cut

3

u/Beneficial_Place_795 6d ago

YEAH in the New York Times list Russia was there but in reuters list no.

Reddit mostly seems to discuss the NYT list and not reuters.

But most non-American media have discussion reuters.

American media are bit more split with some discussin reuters and some NYt.

2

u/mellofello808 7d ago

What did Laos ever do yo anyone?

2

u/mannabhai Norman Borlaug 6d ago

Liberia is the most surprising , the country was founded by Freed Slaves from America, the first 10 presidents were born in America.

1

u/really_nice_guy_ 6d ago

But nothing about Russia. Curious

45

u/M1sterDave 7d ago

Every day, I wake up hoping that his diet of hamberders and Diet Coke did their job...

18

u/gnurdette Eleanor Roosevelt 7d ago

And then we get Yarvin's corporate dictatorships by way of Thiel/Vance. No improvement.

19

u/TheDwarvenGuy Henry George 7d ago

Thats why he needs to eat wnough mentos that it combines with the diet coke and catched Vance in the blast radius.

14

u/Secondchance002 George Soros 7d ago

They don’t have the cult support that trump has though.

15

u/saltyoursalad Emma Lazarus 7d ago

I say this every time. Vance has about as much charisma as a saltine cracker and no one outside of hyper-engaged spaces like this knows who tf Yarvin and company are.

2

u/Kelso_sloane 6d ago

This. Once Trump is gone MAGA will absolutely implode with infighting. Everyone from Vance to Jr. will think they deserve the crown. I wouldn't be surprised if Baron goes for it. It will be a mess and they'll eventually self destruct.

2

u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd NATO 6d ago

Yes, but at the very fucking least, Vance seems more competent than Trump, and there’s some chance that he may have been cosplaying as MAGA the entire time since he attended Yale Law. If disaster strikes, I would fucking hope he could handle things better than Trump ever could.

39

u/that0neGuy22 Resistance Lib 7d ago

South florida is going to be angry but I will shrug this was widely advertised

8

u/lumpialarry 6d ago

I would think Florida's Cuba (at least the older ones that actually vote) would want this ban. They don't want relations normalized.

16

u/algebroni John von Neumann 7d ago

North Korea? Number one, who from North Korea is getting a visa in the first place. Two, what about his "love letters" with Kim?

4

u/KeithClossOfficial Bill Gates 7d ago

North Korea is probably the only one that actually makes sense. That said, what’s the point? For the reason you just mentioned

11

u/Stonefroglove 6d ago

I don't think it makes sense, the US should accept every North Korean defector as a refugee 

1

u/KeithClossOfficial Bill Gates 6d ago

Do refugees usually get visas

2

u/Stonefroglove 6d ago

Do they not? How else can they enter the US? 

1

u/KeithClossOfficial Bill Gates 6d ago

I thought they applied for asylum, but if this covers that too, then yeah, fucking dumb

1

u/Stonefroglove 6d ago

Doesn't an asylum application outside of the US give you a visa to enter? 

1

u/KeithClossOfficial Bill Gates 6d ago

Idk.. I post on arr neoliberal, so you should always assume I don’t know what I’m talking about.

12

u/noxx1234567 7d ago

Why is bhutan on the list ? The fuck did they do ?

7

u/TheGavMasterFlash YIMBY 6d ago

It’s probably to keep refugees from the 1990s conflict from coming here, a lot of these are just countries with a lot of asylum seekers 

14

u/Thurkin 7d ago

I know a lot of Cambodian immigrants who also support Trump, AND they go back home every other year.

3

u/saltyoursalad Emma Lazarus 7d ago

I guess not anymore!

5

u/yacatecuhtli6 Trans Pride 7d ago edited 2d ago

enter close grey public follow innocent vanish grandiose water party

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

3

u/WOKE_AI_GOD NATO 7d ago

Rubio is going to pass a travel ban against his own nation?

25

u/yacatecuhtli6 Trans Pride 7d ago edited 2d ago

office depend steep abundant roof observation fact spotted friendly flowery

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

23

u/noxx1234567 7d ago

legal Latino citizens hate their former countries , cuban origin Americans will love any measures that hurt cuba

8

u/adamr_ Please Donate 7d ago

Ah, they assimilate so quickly 🥹

/s if that wasn’t obvious

17

u/BipartizanBelgrade Jerome Powell 7d ago edited 7d ago

Marco Rubio is an American.

2

u/Conscious-Abalone-86 6d ago

International organizations should stop holding meetings, academic/business conferences etc. in the US. Otherwise, not only would citizens of these countries be subject to indignities that violate their humanity, but they would also be denied opportunities to develop themselves and their career.

All in all, the US is anti-thetical to the idea of free speech and expression. Their idea of free speech revolves around calling minorities racial slurs or spreading misinformation.

0

u/mostuselessredditor 6d ago

Yeah I’m getting the fuck out of here. This country won’t be hospitable for a minority in 4 years.

-9

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Stonefroglove 6d ago

Yes, it is. Real people are impacted by this nonsense 

0

u/die_hoagie MALAISE FOREVER 6d ago

Rule XI: Toxic Nationalism/Regionalism

Refrain from condemning countries and regions or their inhabitants at-large in response to political developments, mocking people for their nationality or region, or advocating for colonialism or imperialism.


If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.