No. 2 US diplomat meets much-prosecuted West African leader after visa restrictions were eased

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau has met with the heavily prosecuted vice president of Equatorial Guinea in Washington after the Trump administration approved a waiver of corruption sanctions that allowed the leader of the West African country to travel to New York for last week’s high-level U.N. meeting and other U.S. cities.

The State Department said Tuesday that Landau met with Teodoro “Teddy” Nguema Obiang a day earlier and “reaffirmed joint commitments to deepen commercial and economic ties, combat illegal immigration, and advance security cooperation.”

“Both leaders agreed to take concrete steps to expand the bilateral relationship moving forward,” the department said in a statement.

Obiang is accused of pilfering his impoverished country’s resources to feed a lifestyle of luxury cars, mansions and superyachts, but earlier this month he was given a temporary pass on U.S. corruption sanctions that blocked him from traveling to the United States.

The waiver, which The Associated Press first reported in early September, was issued following recommendations that it is in the U.S. national interest to blunt growing Chinese influence in Equatorial Guinea and boost American oil and gas business interests there, according to administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The waiver allowed Obiang — notorious among world leaders accused of corruption for a lavish lifestyle that has attracted the attention of prosecutors in several countries — to travel to cities outside of New York. That includes Washington, Miami and Los Angeles, where he has owned property and luxury vehicles, some of which he has had to forfeit in legal proceedings.

While moving to ease restrictions for a much-prosecuted African leader, the Trump administration has cracked down on visas for large numbers of foreigners, including revoking or denying permissions to be in the United States to people it deems undesirable.

That included denying visas to Palestinian Authority leaders to come to the U.N. General Assembly meeting and restrictions on delegations from Iran, Brazil Sudan, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Iranian diplomats were barred from shopping at wholesale discount club stores like Costco and prohibited from buying a slew of products deemed luxury goods without permission from the State Department. Those restrictions were announced just before the General Assembly was set to start after the proposal was first reported by the AP.

Under restrictions not publicized until Tuesday after the close of the assembly’s gathering of world leaders, Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha and his family were blocked from traveling beyond five blocks of their New York lodgings, U.N. headquarters and the Brazilian mission to the U.N. without permission from the State Department.

President Donald Trump has been in a long-running feud with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over the country’s prosecution of Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. The Trump administration has slapped sanctions on judges and others and imposed 50% tariffs on many of Brazil’s exports to the United States. Trump and Lula met briefly last week at the U.N. and agreed to meet in the near future, but no date has been set.

Venezuelan Cabinet minister Magaly Gutierrez Vina was subject to similar restrictions, requiring her to get permission for any travel beyond a 1-mile radius of her lodgings, U.N. headquarters or the Venezuelan mission to the United Nations, according to documents posted to the Federal Register website.

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Valdrack Whitaker and his delegation were required to get approval for any travel beyond a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle during the General Assembly, the documents said.

The same restriction was put on Sudanese military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his government delegation, although Burhan opted not to attend the General Assembly.