Trump Travel Ban Due to Coronavirus - President Donald Trump Addresses The Nation On Coronavirus, Restricts Travel To Europe

In the closing hours of Wednesday, US president, Donald Trump announced his administration’s decision to impose a travel ban between the US and selected European countries—countries located in the border-free area of Europe, the Schengen. The countries in this region include Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The ban does not affect the UK and Ireland despite being in close proximity to the Schengen region.

With respect to the unreasonable travel ban decision with the UK and Ireland being in close proximity with “affected” areas, Britain’s finance manager, Rishi Sunak said that, “With regard to flight bans, we are always guided by the science as we make our decisions here. The advice we are getting is that there isn’t evidence that interventions like closing the borders or travel bans are going to have a material effect on the spread of the infection.” 

The World Health Organization also opines that “restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions.”

It was later made known by the Trump administration that the ban wasn’t as drastic as the president made it seem and it would apply only to foreign nationals; US citizens who had already been screened before entering the country would not be affected. Countering the announcement Trump made mentioning that “all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days” were banned.

The travel ban announcement sparked a lot of reactions criticisms as the EU condemned it saying that the measures taken towards the decision were “unilaterally and without consultation.” In Trump’s defense, it was an urgent call that needed a quick response, yet clarified that the ban applies to only people from the Schengen region and not goods. This he tweeted after stock futures began to tumble in fear of the ban affecting “trade and cargo.”

“This is not a financial crisis, this is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world,” he later added. This he said in an attempt to lessen whatever tension his initial statement of placing a ban on both people and goods caused.

As it currently stands, the coronavirus outbreak is one that has affected a lot of nations, especially from the Asian region. It then seems quite biased that the Trump travel ban would affect Europe. In the president’s defense, Europe was seemingly responsible for the spread of the “foreign virus” in the US. In addition to this, he said that Europe had “failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hotspots. As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe.”

The prompt decision behind the ban was in an attempt to prevent “new cases from entering” the US shores as the virus continues to spread. The ban is expected to last for the next 30 days, however, the ban text reads that “This proclamation shall remain in effect until terminated by the president.” It takes effect from midnight on Friday and has a probability of lasting for 30 days. 

US citizens and permanent residents in affected European areas will be allowed back into the US during the 30-day period with proper screening and quarantine where necessary.