Welcome to CFR’s Daily News Brief. Today we’re covering the Donald Trump administration’s new travel ban, as well as... - U.S.-China trade talks in London
- An attack on a Colombian presidential hopeful
- The National Guard’s deployment after L.A. protests
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Trump’s entry restrictions for citizens of nineteen countries came into effect today. Twelve countries face a full travel ban, and seven face partial restrictions, with exceptions for certain groups. The Trump administration said it needed the measures to preserve national security. Most of the targeted countries are in Africa and the Middle East. The new policy echoes a travel ban from Trump’s first administration for citizens of Muslim-majority countries, although analysts said it appeared better crafted to withstand legal challenges this time.
The details. -
A full travel ban applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Partial curbs affect citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
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The State Department provided around 170,000 visas last year to citizens of the first twelve countries, mostly for tourism, business, or study.
- Exemptions apply to green card holders, dual citizens, recipients of Afghan Special Immigrant Visas, and World Cup and Olympic athletes, among other cases.
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Trump said many countries in question insufficiently screened their citizens for travel, had high rates of visa overstays, or were not accepting deportees from the United States.
The responses.
- Migrant rights advocates and some Democratic state attorneys general said they were studying the ban and considering legal action. In Trump’s first term, two versions of his travel ban were blocked in court before the Supreme Court upheld a third one in 2018.
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Some countries responded in defiance—with Chad suspending visas for U.S. travelers and Venezuela’s interior minister saying “being in the United States is a big risk for anybody”—while others were more conciliatory. Officials from Somalia, Sierra Leone, and the African Union said they were ready to address the concerns raised by Trump. The African Union Commission nevertheless voiced worries about potential negative effects for educational, trade, and political ties “nurtured over decades.”
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“The immigration debate in the United States for about three decades now has been largely about legal versus illegal immigration. And there's been a strong consensus in both parties that legal immigration is an enormous net benefit for the United States. It's a good thing. We want people coming here legally, we want them to move to the United States. We want them to contribute to our economy and our society…The Trump administration has a different view of the world; they think immigration generally is not a good thing for the United States.”
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| Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images |
Dozens of immigration agencies, policies, and programs could be affected under the second Trump administration. CFR’s Diana Roy breaks down some of the most important terms to know in this article. |
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U.S.-China talks in London. Trade envoys from the two countries are meeting in London today following a Thursday call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Beijing said Saturday it had approved some permissions for exports of rare earth minerals, without giving details. The exports were the source of U.S. complaints following an interim trade deal on May 12.
Colombian politician shot. Opposition senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, who planned to run for president in next year’s election, was shot in the head at a Bogotá rally on Saturday. He survived an initial operation yesterday. Authorities arrested a fifteen-year-old boy following the shooting and are investigating the incident. Leaders of several countries in the region and beyond condemned the shooting and acts of political violence generally.
Rwanda to leave regional bloc. The country announced its exit from the Economic Community of Central African States after the group blocked it from taking a scheduled role as rotating chair. Members objected to Rwanda’s “aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),” the DRC president’s office said. Congo, the UN, and several Western countries accuse Rwanda of backing M23 rebels in the eastern Congo, which it denies.
India-UK security cooperation. The two countries agreed to step up joint counterterrorism work, United Kingdom (UK) Foreign Minister David Lammy said after meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Lammy is the highest-ranking Western official to visit both India and Pakistan following April’s terrorist attack in India-administered Kashmir and India’s subsequent hostilities with Pakistan.
Kazakhstan cabinet shakeup. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev replaced his defense and transportation ministers yesterday, but did not announce a reason for the reshuffle. Tokayev had criticized the outgoing transportation minister for delays in infrastructure projects. The outgoing defense minister was appointed in 2022 following protests over fuel prices.
Thailand-Cambodia border dispute. Both countries agreed to reduce their military presence along their shared border following the May 28 killing of a Cambodian soldier. The border skirmish last month prompted the countries to increase military enforcements. Thailand temporarily restricted access to its border over the weekend, while on June 6, Cambodia called for longstanding territorial disputes on the border to be taken up at the International Court of Justice. Both sides also held talks aiming to diffuse tensions.
U.S. National Guard at protests. Trump deployed two thousand National Guard members to Los Angeles yesterday following protests over immigration enforcement. The move went against the wishes of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who called it a “serious breach of state sovereignty.” The last time a president deployed the National Guard without the request of a state governor was in 1965, when then-President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights activists.
Wrongfully deported man returned. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was flown back to the United States Friday after being held in detention in El Salvador for nearly three months. The Trump administration previously acknowledged he was transferred to El Salvador in error but claimed they could not bring him back. The Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an accusation that Abrego Garcia participated in a yearslong migrant smuggling operation, which his lawyer called “preposterous”; Abrego Garcia remains in federal custody.
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India and the United States are growing security partners, but New Delhi has a different approach to its defense investment and geographic focus of deterrence efforts, the Special Competitive Studies Project’s Sameer Lalwani writes in this article. |
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Today, the UN Ocean Conference co-hosted by France and Costa Rica begins in Nice.
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Today, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is visiting London.
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Tomorrow, the UN Security Council holds a session on its mission in Iraq.
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| Freddie Everett/State Department |
The United States, the DRC, and Rwanda signed a declaration of principles toward peace in the eastern DRC. The U.S. approach is connected to the future of mineral resources in the area, CFR expert Michelle Gavin writes for Africa in Transition. |
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