Trump imposes major restrictions on travel from 26 European countries
Baku, March 12, AZERTAC
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would ban many foreign travelers from Europe for the next 30 days amid the growing coronavirus outbreak.
"The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots," Trump said Wednesday night, speaking from the Oval Office. "As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe."
The travel ban goes into effect Friday at midnight. The restrictions apply only to foreign nationals, and not U.S. citizens, green card holders or the families of U.S. citizens, the Department of Homeland Security said. The White House further specified that the ban applied to foreign nationals who have visited 26 countries in Europe that allow unrestricted movement among them. Ireland and the U.K. are exempt, although it is not clear why because the virus is also present in Britain.
The travel ban does not apply to European trade or goods, though Trump suggested that was the case during his prime-time address. The White House scrambled to fix his apparent misstatement, clarifying that the restriction applied only to people. Trump himself tweeted out a clarification moments after his speech ended.
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