Has Trump put up entry into the U.S. for sale? | Explained

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on February 27, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The story so far: U.S. President Donald Trump recently unveiled plans to sell $5 million “gold card” resident permits to non-Americans worldwide, a long-term visa policy that might eventually offer a pathway to citizenship for the global economic elite. This new visa will replace the existing EB-5 immigrant investor visa for foreigners who can create jobs in the U.S., the latter an option that Mr. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has attacked as “full of nonsense, make-believe and fraud.”

Why replace the EB-5 visa?

The EB-5 visa was introduced in 1990 with the explicit aim of attracting foreign investors to the U.S. via the residency route, only requiring that they create and support jobs on U.S. soil via direct investment of capital. The investment levels are set at $8,00,000 in a “Targeted Employment Area”, one that faces a certain level of economic distress, and $10,50,000 outside of such areas. Critics of the EB-5 programme, primarily in the Trump administration, highlight the scope for abuse and fraud within this scheme. While aggregate figures on the scale and frequency of EB-5 fraud and abuse are not available, there is a significant number of documented cases involving misuse of investor funds, for example developers diverting millions of dollars intended for projects towards personal use. In terms of governance, the U.S. Congress is responsible for determining citizenship qualifications. In this regard Mr. Trump has reportedly said that Congressional approval may be unnecessary for the “gold card” visa, an approach that might cause consternation on Capitol Hill.

Also Read | Trump sees ’a thirst’ for his ’gold card’ visa idea with $5 million potential path to U.S. citizenship

How much revenue will the card raise?

Mr. Trump, while announcing the scheme, expressed hope that “If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion dollars… I think we will sell a lot because I think there’s really a thirst.” He also noted that future recipients of the gold visa will be “wealthy and successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people.” However, close to 75% of billionaires polled by a survey that asked if they would consider this visa indicated that they would not opt for it, primarily because at that level of wealth, they anyway could set up businesses in the U.S. at a lower cost, have options to reside on U.S. soil, and could avoid the U.S.’ tax net on global income.

Yet there appears to be a lack of clarity on the tax front. While Mr. Trump has said gold card-holders would not be subject to taxes on their overseas income, this would imply that gold card residents will be able to purchase a tax benefit not available to U.S. citizens, effectively creating “dual classes of taxpayers among the American wealthy.” That might contravene certain regulations or potentially cause political blowback for the White House if passed into law.

What about other countries?

If we were to compare the experience of other advanced economies, both the U.K. and Australia have experimented with similar “golden visa” initiatives, yet in both countries it was scrapped “after interest peaked at a few hundred applications per year”, according to London School of Economics Professor Kristin Surak. Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal had similar experiences. Ms. Surak’s 2023 book, The Golden Passport, examines the global market for citizenship and the wealthy elites who buy their way through it.

The U.K.’s trial of a “gold card” type programme raised another concern — former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said once to the U.K. Parliament that a closer examination of visa grantees indicated that some “were potentially at high risk of having obtained wealth through corruption or other illicit financial activity, and/or being engaged in serious and organised crime.” When he was recently asked by media whether Russian oligarchs would be eligible for the card, Mr. Trump said, “Yeah, possibly… I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”

How does this tie in with Trump’s immigration paradigm?

The Trump administration is currently in the process of carrying out mass deportations of undocumented migrants in the U.S. Even so, his White House has strongly supported legal migration. Add to this the MAGA focus on gaining transactional advantage through dealmaking with other nations, and the gold visa scheme makes perfect sense as a means to monetise entry into the U.S., while simultaneously spurring job creation. The test of the success of the programme will depend upon the numbers of those who take up the gold visa offer.