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During a Wednesday morning interview, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shed some light on the Trump administration’s vision for the H-1B visa program.
In comments to Fox News, Secretary Bessent explained President Trump’s plan for the visa program: bringing in skilled overseas workers for several years in an effort to train American citizens to work in specialized jobs.
“We can’t snap our fingers and say, ‘You’re going to learn how to build ships overnight,’” Bessent said, alluding to an untrained American workforce in the face of an uncertain and evolving future.
“I think the president’s vision here is to bring in overseas workers…who have the skills, three, five, seven years, to train the U.S. workers, then they can go home, [and] then the US workers fully take over,” Bessent continued.
H-1B visas, which allow employers to temporarily hire foreign professionals to fill specialized occupations, have stirred some controversy among conservative commentators who have long argued that foreign workers should not be used to fill jobs that could be potentially held by American citizens.
The late Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk called the H-1B visa program a “scam” shortly before he died. This week, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh wrote, “Even if it were true that we don’t have enough talented people in this country, which it isn’t, that would be all the more reason to stop importing foreigners. We need to train up our own people. Give actual Americans a shot. America is for Americans.”
Walsh’s comments were sparked by President Trump’s remarks this week during an interview with Laura Ingraham. In the interview, the president argued that there weren’t enough talented American workers in the country to hold specialized jobs.
Based on Bessent’s comments on Wednesday morning, it appears the president was, indeed, referring to the need to train Americans to compete in what may soon be a changing manufacturing environment, thanks to AI and domestic manufacturing expansion under the Trump administration.
“An American can’t have that job because we haven’t built ships in the US for years, we haven’t built semiconductors, so this idea of overseas partners coming in, teaching American workers, then returning home – that’s a home run,” Bessent said.
Earlier this year, President Trump signed a proclamation raising the minimum fee for employee sponsorship of foreign workers through the H-1B program to $100,000 per employee.
The president’s comments in September, while signing this proclamation, reiterated the same stance he had during his interview with Ingraham this week.
“We need workers, we need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that that’s what’s going to happen,” the president said.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick added, “$100,000 per year, so the whole idea is, no more will these Big Tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers…if you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That’s the policy here.”