WASHINGTON (AP) — Taking dramatic action, President Donald Trump announced he is sharply restricting passenger travel from 26 European nations to the U.S. and moving to ease the economic cost of a viral pandemic that is roiling global financial markets and disrupting the daily lives of Americans.
Trump, in a rare Oval Office address to the nation, said Wednesday that the monthlong restriction on travel would begin late Friday, at midnight. After weeks of playing down the coronavirus threat, he blamed Europe for not acting quickly enough to address the “foreign virus” and claimed that U.S. clusters were “seeded” by European travelers.
“We made a lifesaving move with early action on China,” Trump said. “Now we must take the same action with Europe.”
Trump said the restrictions won’t apply to the United Kingdom and there would be exemptions for “Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings.” He said the U.S. would monitor the situation to determine if travel could be reopened earlier.
The State Department followed Trump’s remarks by issuing an extraordinary global health advisory cautioning U.S. citizens to “reconsider travel abroad” due to the virus and associated quarantines and restrictions.
Trump spoke after days of confusion in Washington and in the face of mounting calls on the Republican president to demonstrate greater leadership. At times, though, his remarks contributed to the uncertainty.
While Trump said all European travel would be cut off, Homeland Security officials later clarified that the new travel restrictions would apply only to most foreign nationals who have been in the “Schengen Area” at any point for 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the United States. The area includes France, Italy, German, Greece, Austria, Belgium and others, and the White House said the zone has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of mainland China.
The restrictions don’t apply to legal permanent residents, immediate family of U.S. citizens or others “identified in the proclamation” signed by Trump. Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the Trump administration is also requesting travelers returning to the U.S. from Europe to “voluntarily quarantine” for 14 days.
Trump said the prohibitions would “not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things.” But the official proclamation released after Trump spoke made clear it applies to people, not goods and cargo.
The Oval Office address represented an abrupt shift in tone from a president who has repeatedly sought to play down the severity of the virus outbreak. Many Americans shared a similar mindset in recent weeks, but the grueling events of Wednesday changed the mood: Communities canceled public events nationwide, universities moved to cancel in-person classes and families grappled with the impact of disruptions to public schools. The number of confirmed cases of the infection topped 1,000 in the U.S., and the World Health Organization declared the global crisis is now a pandemic.
Even as Trump spoke from behind the Resolute Desk, the pandemic’s ferocious rewriting of American daily life continued. The National Basketball Association suspended its season, and Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks announced that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive for COVID-19. The first confirmed case on Capitol Hill was reported in a legislative staffer.
After Trump spoke, the White House cancelled a planned trip by the president to Nevada and Colorado this week “out of an abundance of caution.” Trump’s reelection campaign also postponed a planned March 19 event in Milwaukee that was set to feature the president.
After a week of mixed messages and false starts, and as government officials warned in increasingly urgent terms that the outbreak in the U.S. will only get worse, Washington suddenly seemed poised to act.
Congress unveiled a multibillion-dollar aid package that was expected to be voted on by the House as soon as Thursday.
“I can say we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said in testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He said the virus is “10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu.”
S&P 500 futures went from a loss of about 0.4% before Trump spoke to a decline of 1.5% afterwards. The decline in the futures market followed a steep 4.9% drop in regular trading Wednesday. Wall Street investors are increasingly concerned that the Trump administration and other governments won’t be able to do enough to prevent the virus outbreak from causing significant damage to the global economy.
