So, I’ve long had issues with H-1B Visas, and all types of guest-worker visas. Not only do they take jobs from natives, in many cases (but not all), they create a class of workers with limited rights. Bosses don’t just want guest workers because they are cheaper and drive down wages, but because they can be mistreated. No job, no visa, and the time to find a new one is short: sixty days in the case of H1-Bs.
The idea behind Trump’s fee, I assume, is to make it so that companies will hire more Americans. Adding 100K makes it so that, in most cases, companies should only hire workers when they really can’t find a qualified America.
The problem is that big multi-nationals, the folks who use H1-B’s the most, mostly hire workers for jobs like IT and research which don’t have to be done in America. So, instead of hiring Americans, they’ll most likely just move the jobs and facilities to other countries.
The solution is an extraterritorial tax. (America does these all the time, it can be done.) Simply tax the firms no matter where the workers are, and crack down on foreign contracting companies by taxing companies which hire such contractors.
This is radical, to be sure, a lot of large companies don’t pay tax, after all, and you’d have to set it up so they can’t avoid these taxes, no matter how many offsets they have or where they hide their money.
This can be done. The idea that America can’t force offshore banks to give the IRS any information it wants is ludicrous. They broke Swiss banking secrecy, they can break Panama’s and Ireland’s. A few nasty threats, if sincere, would work. Heck, the US invaded Panama not so long ago and some simple bank sanctions would make it so that money can’t move out of banking havens.
This isn’t done, and won’t be done for the simple reason that the bipartisan consensus is that corporations, especially big ones, shouldn’t pay much tax and that it’s OK to let them get away with tax avoidance. The US is still their biggest market, they can’t leave it and the US can bring them to heel any time it wants. (Where are they going to go? Europe will do what it’s told and they don’t want to live in China or Russia.)
Implementation matters and even when Trump has a good idea, he doesn’t think it thru. It’s also true that in some fields (medicine, for example) the US just does not produce enough professionals. If you want to cut back on foreigners doing those jobs, you need to train more workers domestically.
Trump’s one of those executives where you mostly don’t want him implementing your ideas (tariffs) for example, because he’ll screw them up and discredit them. That’s what happens when you elect a corrupt, incompetent senile old man who doesn’t have competent advisors and enough sense to let them run the government.
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Feral Finster
The point is to punish India for insubordination.
Troy
It’s all baseless speculation on my part but I think think this is also in part a reaction from Trump due to Kirk’s murder. If there was a conspiracy behind Kirk’s death, then it was probably the Israeli’s. And the Israeli’s are funded by Thiel. And Thiel’s boys are in Trump’s inner circle and a good way to give them a response would be to hit them in the money. And what better way than to tax their golden goose?
But it’s mere speculation.
Dan Kelly
‘And the Israeli’s are funded by Thiel.’
Comments should probably be closed now, as this takes the cake for the stupidest thing ever written at ianwelsh.net.
And a lot of really really stupid things have been written here over the years.
Congratulations Troy!
Just to repeat: Israel is funded by Peter Thiel!
KT Chong
You missed some points:
1. The real benefit of H1B for corporations is that employees don’t organize. That’s why the software and tech industries remain union-free.
2. In the U.S., H1B is the gateway to a green card and ultimately citizenship.
3. For the past 20–30 years, 70–80% of all H1Bs have gone to Indians, leaving little for anyone else.
4. Indians have widely abused the system—cheating, forging diplomas, paying “body shops,” taking over HR, and then hiring only other Indians (a discriminatory practice by U.S. standards).
5. MAGA leaders like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller have long wanted H1B ended to stop what they see as the “browning” and “Indianization” of America, citing the UK and Canada as cautionary tales.
6. Trump’s new executive order imposing a $100,000 H1B fee hits Indians hardest. The reaction from many Americans (and even Chinese) has been: “Good riddance,” or in pop-culture terms, “a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Indians cried out in terror… and were suddenly silenced.”
7. Across the UK and Canada, people on YouTube and TikTok are now saying: “We should do the same thing!” to curb Indian mass migration.
8. Singapore has recently opened its doors to migrant tech workers, and Indians are now flooding in. But Singapore is essentially a Chinese-ethnic nation, and local Chinese —already resentful of Indians who dislike Chinese yet still want to migrate to a Chinese country —are pushing back against what they see as the takeover of Singapore.
GrimJim
“5. MAGA leaders like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller have long wanted H1B ended to stop what they see as the “browning” and “Indianization” of America, citing the UK and Canada as cautionary tales.”
The irony of Anglo-American White Supremacists hating on Indo-Aryans is… just… so MAGA. Fits in well with their Nazi antecedents.
“No, no, no, not YOU Aryans, US Aryans. And yes, that is our swastika now, not yours!”
GrimJim
And of course, Bannon and Miller being Irish and Jewish respectively is just icing on the cake…
Such self loathing!
Troy
Hey, Dan Kelly,
Israel is committing a genocide right now. Israel is an evil country and its criminal government should probably be dissolved, its leaders investigated and tried for genocide, and the land stolen immediately returned to the Palestinians.
Additionally, Israel has historically exported its illegal summary executions not only of Nazis, but also of critics of Israel as well as officials from countries not at war with Israel, so a murder of a waffling half-hearted critic like Kirk is fully believable.
However, as I’ve noted, this is mere speculation on my part.
There is a weirdness to this case that has been documented in videos and reports from colleagues of Kirk’s such as Candice Owens, noting Kirk’s unease and worries after being confronted by Israeli lobbyists after he’d criticized the Israelian state for its genocide.
And Peter Thiel is a well noted supporter of Israel and its current government policies. I imagine his hands are died a deep shade of scarlet from his support of current policies as well as the support provided by his company, Palentir.