Why would Trump put Bhutan, a tiny nation that prioritizes happiness, on his ‘red list?’

President Trump’s updated travel ban list hasn’t yet been finalized, but a draft has been circulating — and one of the countries included is a bit of a head-scratcher.

The draft list divides countries into “red,” “orange,” and “yellow” sections. “Red” countries are subject to an immediate and automatic ban for all citizens. “Orange” countries restrict access, meaning anyone from that country who wants to enter the United States will need to attend an in-person interview before receiving a visa. Meanwhile, “yellow” countries are under review and are being asked to update their security systems or risk being put under the red or orange sections.

The 11 countries included on the red list are mostly unsurprising — they are countries where diplomatic relations have been strained for decades, or countries that Trump already included under his previous travel ban. Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen fit that bill. More confusing, however, is the inclusion of Bhutan.

Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation with a population of less than 800,000, usually only makes headlines due to its policy of prioritizing “Gross National Happiness” instead of GDP. It is a politically neutral country that has a policy of only passing laws if they contribute to the well-being of its citizens, and its eco-credentials are particularly high: Bhutan is the only carbon-negative country in the world. This is partly due to its dedication to green energy and partly because of its density of forests.

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The nation is determined to make sustainability a core part of its identity. Tourism is tightly controlled and any traveler visiting the nation has to pay a $100-per-day Sustainable Development Fee. The money is intended to balance the economic positives of tourism with a commitment to protecting the environment and cultural artifacts. Tourists weren’t even allowed into the country until the 1970s.

Seeking to insulate its country from external forces has been a Bhutanese priority for decades. TV wasn’t introduced until 1999 — at the same time as the internet — and cellphones didn’t arrive until 2003.

There is a dark side to this ideological commitment to “preserving cultural heritage”: in 1985, the country instituted a “One Nation, One People” policy. Not long afterwards, Bhutanese who were not Druk Buddhists — especially Nepali-speaking Hindus in the country’s south — were subject to citizenship revocations and arrests, and many were displaced into refugee camps in Nepal. The U.S. took 85 percent of Bhutanese refugees who were forced to leave the country during that time. Most of those refugees settled in the state of Ohio.

The Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio — the largest group for Bhutanese refugees in the United States — describes the “One Nation, One People” policy as one that was “designed to erase the cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage of the people of southern Bhutan who are minority Hindus in a majority Buddhist nation,” and estimates that 28,000 such Bhutanese refugees are now settled in Ohio.

The lower-middle-income country, positioned in between India and China, is governed by a king, a prime minister, a royal advisory council and an administration.

What exactly would lead Trump to categorize Bhutan as a “red” country today, with its citizens subject to an outright ban? The reason is unclear, but it may be because Bhutanese citizens who have come to the U.S. on visas in the past few years have had an unusually high rate of overstay. The U.S. government is concerned about “irregular migration patterns” from the country, according to CNBC, as well as “national security concerns.”

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According to Homeland Security’s most recent Entry/Exit Overstay Report, from the end of the fiscal year in 2023, Bhutanese nationals had a high rate of overstays on standard B1/B2 visas, at 12.71 percent — but that only works out to 23 people. In comparison, China had an overstay rate of 3.67 percent, meaning 13,805 people; Saudi Arabia had an overstay rate of 0.95 percent, which was 433 people; Russia had an overstay rate of 7.51 percent, meaning 4,057 people; and South Africa — whose white Afrikaner citizens Trump offered refugee status to in the early days of his second administration — had an overstay rate of 1 percent, which works out to 917 people.

In other words, the extremely low population of Bhutan makes it appear like huge amounts of Bhutanese refugees are entering the country and then staying on illegally, when in fact fewer than 25 people a year are doing so.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are 24,000 Bhutanese living in the United States. But the population stayed steady at 24,000 from 2015 to 2019 (the latest year the research center has data for.) And before that — in the five years between 2010 and 2015 — just 5,000 Bhutanese nationals arrived.

Quoted in The Telegraph, former Bhutanese politician Karma Loday responded to news of the possible inclusion of Bhutan on the “red list” by saying: “I feel it is unfair for whatever reason to have my beloved country enlisted with some of the countries with terrorism history. We are in no capacity to even defend our nation militarily without seeking help from others let alone wage an act of terrorism to the United States if that is a suspicion.”

This isn’t the first time Bhutan has found itself on the receiving end of a Trump immigration policy. In 2020, it was included in a pilot program by the first Trump administration that would require visitors from countries with over 10 percent overstay rates to pay a $15,000 bond to travel to the United States.