West African countries say the ban is comparable to what the United States imposes on its own citizens.
Published December 31, 2025
Weeks after President Donald Trump added West African countries to his expanded travel ban list, Mali and Burkina Faso announced plans to apply reciprocal visa bans to U.S. citizens.
In separate letters shared late Tuesday, the two countries stressed that the new measures aim to subject Americans to the same rules their nationals face when traveling to their countries.
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Mali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said Americans traveling to Mali will be subject to “the same conditions and requirements that U.S. authorities impose on Malian nationals entering the United States.”
It added that the changes were introduced as “a matter of reciprocity and have immediate effect”.
Burkina Faso said it applied “equivalent visa measures to United States nationals” and stressed that it “remains committed to the principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality of States and reciprocity in international relations.”
The announcement came after President Trump announced on Dec. 16 that he was adding seven more countries and states holding Palestinian Authority documents to the list of countries whose citizens are “completely” restricted and restricted from entering the United States.
Countries added to the list also include Burkina Faso and Mali, both of which are Arab or African.
President Trump said at the time that the changes were being introduced to achieve the United States’ “foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism objectives.”
In the section explaining the reasons for the entry ban from Burkina Faso, the US State Department said it had determined that “terrorist organizations continue to plan and carry out terrorist activities throughout Burkina Faso.”
He also cited the historic refusal to “accommodate” visa overstays and nationals deported from the United States.
Regarding Mali, President Trump’s announcement said the State Department has determined that “armed conflict between the Malian government and armed groups is common throughout the country and that terrorist organizations are operating freely in certain areas of Mali.”
The new additions bring the total to 19, including Palestine, a country that was banned under the Trump administration, but Trump also instituted a similar travel ban during his first term as president.
Along with Niger, which was also added to the U.S. list of banned countries in mid-December, Mali and Burkina Faso have recently sought to distance themselves from the West by cooperating in a new grouping known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
All three countries are led by military leaders who have forged close ties with Russia in recent years and expelled French and American soldiers previously stationed in Russia.
Mali welcomes Russian troops, including about 1,500 members of the Wagner Mercenary Group and about 1,000 fighters from the Kremlin-affiliated Afrika Korps paramilitary group.
At the recent Sahel summit in Bamako, Mali, the three countries announced the creation of a joint military battalion aimed at combating armed groups across the region.
However, the country is struggling to improve its domestic security situation amid intensifying attacks from separatist groups and armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS).
