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Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's 'gold card' visa plan a boon for American economy, expert says: ‘Mutually beneficial'
President Donald Trump's plan to offer a "gold card" visa to wealthy immigrants is similar to policies in use in more than three dozen countries, although the U.S. proposal would come with the highest price tag, an expert tells Fox News Digital. "What you're doing is you're bringing in wealthier individuals, clearly job creators, consumers," Anthony Esposito, founder and CEO of Island Capital Investments, told Fox News Digital. Esposito's comments come after Trump said Tuesday that he planned to offer a "gold card" visa that gives recipients a path to U.S. citizenship for $5 million, telling reporters such a program would be "extremely successful." "They'll be wealthy and they'll be successful, and they'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it's going to be extremely successful," Trump said Tuesday from the Oval Office, according to a report from The Associated Press. Trump To Introduce 'Gold Card' Visa For Wealthy Investors With $5 Million Price Tag: 'Route To Citizenship' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the new gold card would replace the current EB-5 Immigrant Investor visa program within two weeks, a program that was created by Congress in 1990 and offers residency to people who spent about $1 million on a business while employing at least 10 people, the report notes. Read On The Fox News App Trump has also touted the program as a way of trimming the national debt. "Companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment," Trump told reporters Wednesday. "At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We're going to pay down a lot of debt with that." Esposito shares Trump's view for how the money can be used, noting that 1 million gold card recipients would result in $5 trillion for the U.S. Treasury. "A million individuals coming in would be $5 trillion in payment to the government, off the bat, that doesn't include the derivative growth of those individuals being here," Esposito said. Trump State Department Declares Tren De Aragua, Ms-13, Mexican Drug Cartels As Foreign Terrorist Organizations Nearly 40 other countries have similar so-called "citizenship by investment" programs, according to Henley & Partners, a law firm who represents clients looking to use such arrangements. However, the U.S. investment of $5 million proposed by Trump would make the U.S. the most expensive of the group. Esposito believes allowing such investments would benefit the U.S. economy. "The job growth, the job creation, the taxes paid, the consumer spending, 10 million cards would be $50 trillion. The numbers are real walking in, and the numbers are real as of derivative benefits of these individuals being here," Esposito said. While some critics have expressed fears that the program could be abused or lead to threats to national security, Esposito argued that the Trump administration should be trusted to put the right vetting procedures in place. "It's the exact opposite of the Biden administration's policy. On one side of the curve, we had the mass migrations of unvetted, undocumented immigrants coming in the southern border that were essentially living on the taxpayer dime," Esposito said, adding that Trump's policy would call for "a program where we have fully vetted the individuals on a personal basis and on an economic basis." Ultimately, Esposito says, Trump's program will cause a "mutually beneficial" partnership between the U.S. and gold card holders. "It is the greatest nation in the world. It is the greatest economy in the world," Esposito said. "This is just simply a way of vetting people and having people come in that will create a mutually beneficial relationship between the United States, and the United States economy, and those gold card holders." The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for article source: Trump's 'gold card' visa plan a boon for American economy, expert says: 'Mutually beneficial'
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What We Know So Far About the $5 Million ‘Trump Gold Card' Visa
Photo:The United States has announced plans to launch a new 'Trump Gold Card' visa that would give wealthy investors the right to live and work in the US—as well as a pathway to citizenship—in exchange for a $5 million investment. 'We're going to be selling a gold card,' President Trump said at a press conference at the Oval Office on February 25. 'You have a green card. This is a gold card. We're going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that's going to give you green card privileges; plus, it's going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.' While full details have yet to be released, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said applicants to the so-called Trump Gold Card visa would be vetted 'to make sure they're wonderful world-class global citizens.' The announcement follows a series of immigration-related executive orders that implement 'enhanced vetting' of visa applicants and restrictions on birthright citizenship, in addition to border security measures such as blocking asylum seekers at the southern border. The administration said the new gold card will launch in two weeks and that it does not need congressional approval. However, 'any new investor visa would require new legislation which would have to pass through Congress, which is unlikely to be enacted in the short term,' Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at investment migration firm Henley & Partners, said in an emailed statement. Many countries around the world—including Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Malta—offer golden visa programs with minimum investments of around 500,000 euros (approximately $525,000 USD). The president said he hopes to sell a million of the gold cards, which would be amount to $5 trillion. 'If we sell 10 million of these cards, that's a total of $50 trillion, [and] we have $35 trillion in debt,' he said. Financial advisers told Reuters that the new gold card would be unlikely to attract wealthy investors who want to avoid being taxed on their global income. The president said the new gold card would replace the US's existing EB-5 Immigrant Investor program. Due to legislative uncertainties, 'it is too early to know if the EB-5 program will stop, be phased out, or continue alongside the gold card,' Basil Mohr Elzeki, head of the Americas at Henley & Partners, tells Condé Nast Traveler. Under current EB-5 rules, applicants must invest at least $800,000 in a commercial enterprise in the United States and plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified US workers. In 2024 more than 14,000 qualified investors and their family members obtained legal permanent residency in the United States through the EB-5 Program, according to government data. Since 2000, 91% of all EB-5 visas issued were associated with investments into regions with high levels of unemployment. Those who are in the process of applying for the existing EB-5 program 'should proceed with their investment promptly to secure their place under the current regulatory framework,' Volek of Henley & Partners said in an emailed statement. This is a developing news story and will be updated with more information as it becomes available. Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler The Latest Travel News and Advice Want to be the first to know? Sign up to our newsletters for travel inspiration and tips These Are the World's Most Powerful Passports in 2024 Are Gate Lice Soon to Be Exterminated? The Friendliest Cities in the US, According to Our Readers
