In a speech that has garnered intense criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, President Donald Trump announced on March 11 that the United States would temporarily suspend most travel from the European Union for 30 days from March 13 in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The executive order applies to most foreign nationals who have visited one of the 26 European countries of the Schengen Zone since February 26. American citizens and permanent residents, as well as British and Irish passport holders, are exempted from the new suspension and will be able to travel to and from the US without any restrictions.
Speaking to the nation from the Oval Office, Trump’s address was tinged with his administration’s hallmark isolationism and a staunch defence of the White House’s response to the outbreak.
Most notably, Trump took an extraordinary step when he expressly blamed the EU, a key US ally, for not acting quickly enough to address what he called “a foreign virus”. Trump has never offered a similar rebuke of the Chinese Communist Party or to other top officials in China who attempted to cover up the deadly severity of the virus when it first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December of last year, weeks before it spread to Europe and later around the world.
“We made a lifesaving move with early action on China. Now we must take the same action with Europe,” Trump said, a reference to an early ban on travellers from China. “A large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travellers from Europe,” Trump said without mentioning that localised transmission of the virus has already been recorded in the US.
His address specifically said that the new restrictions would apply to “all travel from Europe”, a phrase that the White House later had to clarify that the order only applies to the Schengen Zone and not to the 27-member European Union.
Europe’s passport and visa-free Schengen travel area comprises 26 countries including EU members France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Austria, Spain, and Belgium, where the bloc has its headquarters, but also other non-EU countries like Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland.
Trump also initially indicated that the executive order would cover all inbound cargo traffic, in addition to human passengers. The White House, however, issued a statement shortly after Trump’s address where it walked back his statement and said that only travellers would be affected.
Leaders in the EU assailed Trump for the travel ban, with the famously controversy-averse European Commission going so far as to offer a rare public rebuke of a world leader when it said the White House made the decision without consulting or notifying any of Europe’s officials before the announcement was announced.
“The European Union disapproves of the fact that the US’ decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said in a joint statement. “The coronavirus (outbreak) is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,” von der Leyen and Michel said. “The European Union is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”
The announcement came a day after communities across the US cancelled public events and the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic as the number of infections in the US surpassed 1,000.
Trump defended his decision to not notify all European Union leaders before he announced the temporary travel restrictions. “When they raise taxes on us, they don’t consult us,” Trump told the media shortly after his address. “I think that it’s (the travel ban on European travellers) probably one in the same.”
The order to restrict travellers from Europe is only the latest action taken by the Trump administration since he came to office that has directly targeted the EU several of the US’ closest NATO allies. Spearheaded by White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, whose own links to white nationalist and right-wing conspiracy theorists were revealed in a November 2019 email hack, the administration has slapped tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Europe and threatened broader trade action against European automakers and the bloc’s aerospace industry. Trump has also abandoned an international climate agreement backed by France
Michel and von der Leyen rejected Trump’s suggestion that Europe was not doing enough to contain its outbreak, insisting the EU “is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also disputed the idea that Europe’s did not respond strongly enough to the public health crisis saying, “The reference during the announcement of this decision that there were failings in Europe indicates that factual reasons may have played less of a role in this decision. I believe we are dealing with a global issue and a global challenge. We don’t do it justice, including in the US, by taking decisions that are garnished (sic) with blame.”
Asked what immediate action the European Union might take in response, and whether or not Brussels may impose a reciprocal restriction on American travellers, European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said that the EU “isn’t in the habit of shooting from the hip.“Good policy-making requires proper reflection.”
Trump’s address to the nation, which was co-authored by Miller and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, also included announcements that the White House would ask Congress to provide $50 billion for small business loans and would call for immediate payroll tax cuts.
The US House of Representatives earlier approved $8.3 billion in emergency funding to address the threat of the virus in the US and around the world. The White House also announced financial relief for US workers who are ill, quarantined or caring for others due to the illness. The emergency action will also see the Treasury Department deferring tax payments without interest or penalties for certain businesses and individuals affected. At the same time, the US government will provide capital and liquidity to small firms affected by the outbreak.
The United States has not had an ambassador in Brussels since Trump fired the previous envoy, Gordon Sondland, in February and the exact overall impact of White House’s travel restrictions remains unclear. Around 400 flights cross the Atlantic from Europe to the United States each day and the State Department’s decision to advise American citizens to “reconsider travel abroad” has cast a long shadow on the potential fallout from the restrictions on trans-Atlantic travel if the ban remains in place for several weeks.