US can impose sanctions on countries that don’t quickly repatriate citizens

US President Donald Trump has signed a decree threatening to withhold visas for people from countries that do not quickly repatriate their citizens from the US due to concerns over the coronavirus, Report says, citing RIA Novosti.

Trump wrote in a memo that the DHS secretary will notify the secretary of State if any government denies or delays “the acceptance of aliens who are citizens, subjects, nationals, or residents of that country.

Within seven days of proper notification, the State Department will then initiate a plan to impose visa sanctions under an executive order Trump signed in January. Those sanctions can be repealed if DHS deems the targeted country has resumed accepting people “without unreasonable delay.”

More than 2.1 thousand people died in the United States over the past day due to complications caused by a new coronavirus.

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of a new COVID-19 coronavirus infection a pandemic. According to the latest WHO data, globally, more than 1,652,000 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded, while 100,371 people died.