Questions are being raised about how the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles will be impacted by a new ban on citizens from 12 countries entering the United States announced this week by President Donald Trump.
The countries listed in the travel ban that is set to take effect Monday are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The presidential proclamation intended to protect the U.S. “from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats” also calls for heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
There is an exception for “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.”
The U.S., along with Canada and Mexico, is hosting soccer’s FIFA World Cup next year, with matches scheduled across the country, including in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, LA, Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle and Santa Clara, as well as in New York and New Jersey.
But it’s the world’s next Summer Olympics, being held in Los Angeles in three years, that Utahns will be watching more closely, given that the state will be the site of a second Winter Games in 2034.
Organizers of the LA Games, who were meeting with members of the International Olympic Committee’s coordination committee in California when Trump announced the ban, didn’t sound too concerned during a news conference Thursday covered by NBC 4 Los Angeles.
“It was very clear in the directive that the Olympics require special consideration and I actually want to thank the federal government for recognizing that,” LA28 chairman and president Casey Wasserman told reporters.
“It’s very clear that the federal government understands that that’s an environment that they will be accommodating and provide for,” he said. “We have great confidence that that will only continue. It has been the case to date and it will certainly be the case going forward through the Games.”
Nicole Hoevertsz, an IOC vice president from Aruba and the coordination commission chair, said at the news conference the anticipation is that the U.S. government will cooperate as has been done for past American Olympics.
“That is something that we will be definitely looking at and making sure that it is guaranteed as well,” she said. “We are very confident that this is going to be accomplished. I’m sure this is going to be executed well.”
The proclamation does not spell out how the travel ban affects fans and others from targeted countries. Huge international crowds are expected at the World Cup and at the Olympics, which has athletes coming from more than 200 countries.
Wasserman reportedly said he does not expect ticket sales to the 2028 Games to be affected.
Also up in the air is what the ban means for athletes from those countries coming to the U.S. to train, compete or even to play for professional sports teams, the BBC reported, noting the federal government has yet to clarify how a “major sporting event” will be defined.
“I think people from around the world, and Americans going to these events, would want to see actions like this,” U.S State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said at a press briefing Thursday.
“This is part of what it means to host an event,” Pigott told reporters, adding that the administration wants people to be able to attend safely. “We take security concerns extremely seriously.”
Organizers of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games say they’re not worried about the ban.
Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, told the Deseret News a lot can change in coming years.
“We will see many world and country dynamics between now and 2034,” Bullock said. “Our challenge — and opportunity — is to work through anything that may come our way. We did it before and we can do it again.”