There may be a new travel ban in the works and this time it could target Americans indefinitely. Despite the fact that the economies of many European Union countries are suffering after coronavirus closures, they may keep their borders closed to American travelers due to the Trump administration's failure to combat the pandemic in the U.S.
According to the New York Times, the EU is mulling a ban that would place Americans in the same bucket of undesirables as Russians and Brazilians. At upward of 120,000 coronavirus-related deaths, the U.S. has lost more people to the pandemic than any other country.
Most American travelers had already been prohibited from entering the EU since mid-March, as European countries closed down to slow the spread of the virus. But the new ban would extend that prohibition past July 1, when the EU is officially reopening its borders, until such time as the U.S. does a better job of containing the virus.
The EU bloc is reportedly negotiating over two lists of countries that have controlled spread of the coronavirus well enough to be considered safe. "Both lists include China, as well as developing nations like Uganda, Cuba and Vietnam. Both also exclude the United States and other countries that were deemed too risky because of the spread of the virus," writes the Times. Once finalized, the list will be updated every couple of weeks. The EU benchmark is its own average number of new infections per 100,000 people over the past 14 days, which currently sits at 16. According to the Times, the comparable U.S. number is 107.
In a sad twist, Trump imposed a ban on European travelers to the U.S. back in March that he still hasn't lifted. Guess what? No one's clamoring to get into the U.S. and here's why.