US to impose travel ban on a couple of countries

DAVOS: US President Donald Trump said his administration was considering to add a “couple of countries” to the controversial list of states whose citizens are subjected to travel bans or severe restrictions on entry to the United States.

“We are adding a couple of countries to it. We have to be safe. Our country has to be safe,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding that the names of the new countries would be announced “very shortly”.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the administration plans to add seven countries including Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, along with others in Africa and Asia.

Trump also said talks were going on aimed at overhauling the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the arbitrator of global commerce that the US leader accuses of treating Washington unfairly. “I’ve had a dispute running with them for quite a while because our country hasn’t been treated fairly,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, speaking alongside WTO chief Roberto Azevedo. “We’re talking about a whole new structure for the deal... We’ll have to do something,” Trump told reporters.