The Trump administration recently instituted a new travel ban, covering some 19 countries. Of these countries, most are either majority Muslim, including Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Turkmenistan, Sudan, Somalia and even Chad, or have a fairly large Muslim population, such as Eritrea and Togo. Since various iterations of Trump's travel bans have been explicitly described by Trump himself as aimed at preventing Muslim immigration, that probably explains why these countries were chosen.
Of the non-Muslim countries, Cuba and Venezuela have left-wing authoritarian governments that have had mutual suspicion with Trump and have often been the targets of sanctions under previous US administrations, which might also explain the presence of Laos. In the case of Haiti, Trump, or perhaps his vice president, has a particular issue with Haiti, which could explain its inclusion.
However, that still leaves Myanmar, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Burundi. Equatorial Guinea is particularly surprising, being a very small country where about 90% of the country is Christian and only 4% is Muslim, and which has historically had quite friendly relations with the USA and has had very little immigration to the USA in absolute or relative terms.
Has the Trump administration provided any information on its criteria for including countries in its most recent travel ban?
