wLome-based architect Hen Essa Farida Gerard heard about partial restrictions on travel from Togo as part of a travel ban announced by Donald Trump on Thursday, but she lamented losing access to what many young Togers consider to be lands with better opportunities.
“The United States was El Dorado in Togo,” Gerald said. “Many people go to work in the US to save money and support families and projects in Africa. This will really encourage the country to develop stronger partnerships that exclude the US.”
Trump's order, scheduled to come into effect Monday, prohibits people from seven African countries (Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia and Sudan) from entering the United States and making Africa the worst continent. People in three other African countries – Burundi, Sierra Leone and Togo – are subject to partial restrictions. This means you cannot travel to the US on a specific visa.
For Gerald, a graduate of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leadership Programs enacted by the Obama administration, the new restrictions exacerbated the harm from Trump's foreign aid cuts, making it difficult to access funding for social projects in small West African states.
Politics and foreign analyst Mikhail Nyamweya said the new travel ban and restrictions “will bring about patterns of exclusion” and “institutionalize African perceptions as outsiders of the world order.” “In the short term, we limit access to education, innovation and professional mobility. In the long term, we run the risk of alienating our African partners,” he said.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson said countries on the list “cannot show proper screening, high visa overstay rates or share identity and threat information.” “President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors who want to come to our country and cause harm,” she said in X, adding that restrictions are “common sense.”
This interpretation was firmly rejected by Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America. He said the ban “deepens inequality and perpetuates harmful stereotypes, racist ratios and religious intolerance.” She said: “This policy is not about national security, it's about communities that sow and slander the sectors that seek security and opportunity in the United States.”
The policy deepened the cloud of uncertainty in the affected countries, particularly after the announcement in May that the appointment of visas for students who wish to study at university had been suspended due to postponement of social media reviews.
There is also fear throughout Africa about proposed taxes on remittances under Trump's one big beautiful bill law during Congress review. If passed to the law, a 3.5% tax could severely stop GDP in many countries where diaspora remittances are a major contribution.
Jeffrey Gichohee, a 34-year-old nurse working in Minnesota, recently sent money to her uncovered Kenyan mother in travel bans to pay for the concrete wall and the metal gates at her home.
Like many Africans abroad, he regularly sends money back to his family and relies on it for tuition, health care and other basic needs. The new tax, in addition to the transmission and withdrawal fees, would make it even more difficult, he said. “My parents who return to their homes in Kenya are people who suffer from limited resources,” he said. “Personally, I hope that the bill will not pass.”
Human rights activists have criticised the restrictions and planned taxes, saying they are unfairly targeting citizens of the world's southern countries. Other experts say the move could further damage US-African relations during an era of rising anti-Western sentiment on the continent.
However, feelings of despair are not universal. Many people in Libya are not plagued by new policies as the United States is not their primary travel destination, according to Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“It's not good, but it's not noticed as catastrophic,” he said. “People are barely paying attention to (no travel) or (suggested) remittance taxes. If the same thing happens in the UK, it will be a major event, but not in the US.”
Many authorities in affected countries have not yet responded. However, on Thursday afternoon, Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Déby stopped issuing visas to U.S. citizens, citing the need for mutual action.
“Chad has no planes to offer, and no billions of dollars to give, but Chad has dignity and pride,” he referenced a controversial gift to Qatar's Trump administration in a Facebook post.
Last year, the US and French forces were forced to withdraw from military bases in Chad. Chad was previously an important ally of the Sahel to many Western countries.
The response from Sierra Leone, another US ally in West Africa, was far thinner. “We have been wary of this declaration,” Information Minister Sherner Ba said. “Our understanding is that this decision is based solely on visa overstare rates, and that does not reflect the broader state of the US-Sierra Leone relationship, which remains a strong and productive presence from our perspective.”
