It’s been a long time coming.
And Trump’s pronouncements on H-1B visas has his core supporters, choking on their morning cereal.
But to the rest of us, it isn’t at all surprising.
America has lost quite handily to China and this is due to a multiplicity of reasons: its currency is massively overinflated; its internal cohesion is weaker than it has ever been and its crumbling infrastructure isn’t in any position to compete with its biggest rival.
And in the course of twelve months, we have seen the American president flipflop on nearly every policy announcement from tariffs on Chinese goods to immigrant visas.
To leading MAGAs like Nick Fuentes and Steve Bannon, these policy reversals are tantamount to treachery of the very worst kind, rendering the notion of America first, absolutely redundant.
The view that more immigrants not fewer are needed wasn’t the sort of thing that Trump’s white base wanted to hear, but it has become abundantly clear to him that it is the only way America remains relevant.
What was truly extraordinary about all this was the manner in which the commander-in-chief put his point across, which was to say that his compatriots cannot compete intellectually at the highest level.
Image via Laura Ingham and Fox on X.
Throughout his political career, Trump has never been encumbered by the nuances of the English language to couch his words in a manner which doesn’t give offence and millions of white Americans who voted for him last year are learning the hard way.
MAGA’s epistemological framework is underpinned by the Great Replacement Theory, which puts whites and whiteness before everything else, falls flat on its face when it is forced to confront the reality that it must embrace having more people of color come to its shores.
America’s immigration policy in the aftermath of the signing of the 14th amendment into law, helped shore up its position ahead of the Soviets and it is responsible for the likes of Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang, Sundar Pinchai, Elon Musk and Max Levchin running some of the biggest technology companies and venture capital firms in the world.
Some, however, will argue that recipients of the H1-B visas aren’t superior to the numbers of Americans with degrees in STEM subjects and this is true to a point.
At a time when America is losing the innovation race to the People’s Republic of China, opening the floodgates of H1-B immigrants to its shores, is the clearest way to neutralizing the CCP.
And the president is prepared to call his power base ‘stupid and talentless’ if it means kickstarting his country’s recovery.
While it is apparent to all that he has stirred up a hornet’s nest, no one really knows how this might shape things in the coming days, weeks and months.