When the Trump administration announced earlier this month that it would suspend the issuance of immigrant visas to the nationals of 75 countries starting on 21 January, the list had a definitive outlier: the state of Kuwait, a major non-Nato ally to the US, nestled between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
The country is so small that an unimpeded hour-long drive could take you from one end to the other.
But it’s also one of the richest, with a per capita GDP of nearly $33,000, according to the World Bank, which far outpaces much of the world. The social safety net is so generous that citizens have comfortably retired in their late 40s.
Its currency, the Kuwaiti Dinar, is among the strongest in the world.
So how did Kuwait end up on a list of countries whose migrants the US says “take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates?”
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“I was shocked because of the enduring relationship we have with the Kuwaitis,” Asha Castleberry, who was the Kuwait desk officer in the US Army Central and was deployed to the region as part of the counter-Islamic State (IS) mission, told Middle East Eye.
She is now part of the non-partisan National Security Leaders for America.
“We have a lot of a very strong defence ties with them,” she said. “They’re a sovereign state, but for the most part, extremely cooperative.”
That cooperation has been evident since the 1990-1991 Gulf War, when a US-led coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. Kuwait served as a key launchpad for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and then became critical to the US fight against IS, starting in 2014 under the Obama administration.
The US military’s forward posture toward Yemen and Iran also makes Kuwait an essential partner.
Today, some 13,500 US forces are still stationed in the country at multiple American-run military bases, according to the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the US State Department. Only Germany, Japan, and South Korea host more US forces than Kuwait does.
‘I was shocked because of the enduring relationship we have with the Kuwaitis’
– Asha Castleberry, National Security Leaders for America
On the same day the immigrant visa ban was announced, the Pentagon notified Congress of a $800m weapons sale to Kuwait consisting of spare parts, repairs, personnel training, and other upgrades for Kuwait’s Patriot missiles, which the Gulf state had requested to purchase, further cementing the importance of the strategic relationship.
“With this administration, a lot of things are inconsistent,” Castleberry said.
She cited President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy document released last month, which highlights helping Europeans achieve strategic stability but contains very little about Russian aggression.
Yet the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by Congress and recently signed by Trump, is very much centred on countering Russia.
Room to manoeuvre
The Trump administration has, by all accounts, upended American diplomacy and foreign policy. But that approach also remains fluid.
The president has proven to be manoeuvrable from his initial hardline positions, depending on what he gets in return.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is maybe a tactic to lead to some type of transaction with Kuwait on issues that are of regional interest to the United States,” Courtney Freer, a Gulf expert and assistant professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University, told MEE.
“It does seem odd, though,” given the nature of the US-Kuwait relationship, she added.
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“The Kuwaitis have made clear, for instance, that they will never normalise with Israel. And so with that off the table, that maybe makes the Trump administration think that they’re less likely to be engaging with on a broader level,” Freer said.
But earlier this week, Trump invited Kuwait’s emir, Mishal al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, to join his “Board of Peace” for Gaza. The project has come under fire for having a lifetime chairman – Trump himself – as well as founding members who are sought by the International Criminal Court, namely Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
The emir readily accepted the invitation, signalling a willingness to work with Washington on a landmark initiative.
That allows Kuwait to continue its juggling act that includes friendly and deep-seated ties with Iran, as well as a vocal anti-Israel position that makes it a standout among Gulf nations.
Kuwait, Freer said, wants to be seen as an independent Arab actor that does not make decisions on the basis of its relationship with the US, but also wants the US security umbrella at the same time.
Though it would be unlikely, “if there were a time for a policy shift, this would probably be the easiest”, she told MEE.
Freer adds that Mishal now has more room to manoeuvre because he no longer has to answer to a legislature.
Kuwait was the only member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to elect lawmakers until parliament was dissolved two years ago, owing to allegations of inefficiency and corruption.
“In a sense, [the emir] has more breathing room to articulate a foreign policy that he wants to articulate, rather than one which parliament wants to weigh in on, because parliament, in the past, has been very vocal in passing anti-normalisation laws [and] passing boycott legislation regarding Israel,” Freer noted.
‘Purely political’
There is also the question of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, which creates a key pressure point for the Americans and other regional players who are vehemently opposed to the party.
An executive order signed by Trump late last year designated the Muslim Brotherhood chapters in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan as terrorist organisations.
Those chapters “engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests”, the order said.
The move follows the banning of the political party in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt.
“Kuwait is now part of this rift between Saudi and the UAE. Has this been why?” Abdullah Alaoudh, who serves as the countering authoritarianism senior director at the Middle East Democracy Center, speculated to MEE.
He described Kuwait’s addition to the immigrant visa ban as “purely political”.
“It’s possible, pertaining to this Brotherhood designation, [that] the Emiratis are in the forefront of pressure toward this designation in the US,” he told MEE.
Despite a deterioration of human rights, stripping of citizenship and detentions, the Muslim Brotherhood has not been “aggressively prosecuted”, Alaoudh said.
“Perhaps this is part of [the] pressure on Kuwait to fall in the line with this.”
Stripping of citizenship
It’s possible that many former citizens in Kuwait may be considering immigration to the US, especially if they have family ties or have previously attended university in the US.
Nonimmigrant work visas, as well as tourist visas, will continue to be issued.
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At least 50,000 people in Kuwait have lost their citizenship since September 2024, MEE previously reported. Campaigners suggest the figure could be as high as 200,000.
The government stopped regularly announcing figures in September 2025.
Kuwait’s population is just shy of five million people, the majority of whom are expatriate consultants and labourers.
Past US administrations may have considered Kuwait’s continuing citizenship revocations over the past two years to be a clear human rights violation.
But even then, “the idea that human rights would have outweighed other considerations under a Democratic administration, I think, is shown to be largely inaccurate, except in cases where it’s a human rights abuse committed by a country that is already considered an adversary,” Annelle Sheline, a former foreign affairs officer at the State Department’s human rights division, told MEE.
MEE has reached out to the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs multiple times for clarity on exactly why Kuwait is on the immigrant visa ban list, and whether that impacts Kuwaiti citizens only, or everyone who was born in the country, but did not receive comment by the time of publication.
“The GCC states are not necessarily immune from being sort of humiliated in this way,” Sheline said, noting that Kuwait’s listing may be a warning to other staunch US allies.
“Saudis and Qataris bought their way out through lavish promises and commitments – financial commitments – to the Trump administration,” Alaoudh said.
“Whereas by comparison, Kuwait has sort of a quiet relationship with the US.”
