Politics

Donald Trump’s Foreign Worker Paradox: President-Elect Vows To Hire Americans, Does Otherwise

Published on: January 5, 2025 at 11:18 AM
By Deepak Kumar
Donald Trump rally
Donald Trump in a rally in August 2024 (Credits: Facebook/Donald J Trump)

The American workforce landscape is currently under scrutiny and it is no surprise why. While Donald Trump has repeatedly championed the cause of American workers, his actions appear to contradict his rhetoric. Most notably, his business empire continues to rely heavily on foreign labor, and it increased in 2024 by a chunk.

During an August 2024 campaign event, Trump’s message was unequivocal: “We will build American, buy American and hire American.” However, the president-elect’s business practices tell a different story. His various enterprises, including the prestigious Mar-a-Lago Club, a Virginia winery, and the Trump National Golf Club, have reportedly hired foreign workers at unprecedented levels, marking the highest numbers in their history.

A CNN review of government labor data indicates that Trump’s companies have received government approval to hire a significant number of temporary foreign laborers this year. These roles include cooks, houseworkers, servers, and more. This is a detour from what Donald Trump has advocated all along. He explains that the nature of these jobs is seasonal which is why they are unable to attract an American workforce that is available nearby. 

Now the situation is, that native people aren’t getting the jobs and the ones getting the job, the foreign workers, are not happy with their conditions. The outlet reports that some workers came forth to talk about the harsh conditions, and mentioned that they have to live in closed quarters earning $11-15 hourly. Workers commonly endure overcrowded housing and experience restricted mobility due to their work visas, which link them to specified employers. 

But what puts the entire situation in perspective is the freedom given to people close to Donald Trump who promised to hire more Americans this year. Elon Musk, Tesla-Neuralink-OpenAI CEO, spent more than $250 million while endorsing Trump. His company Tesla alone requested and received the approval of 2,000 highly skilled foreign workers from the US government. This ballpark goes for his other companies as well. The problem that lies is the detour of Donald Trump from his word and the fact that his friends are benefiting from this. 

Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, is one such friend who has benefitted from this by receiving approvals for hiring skilled foreign labor this year. Many former officials from the Trump administration curated Project 2025 which has called to cap the H-1b program indefinitely. However, the president-elect has backed out from giving any comments on the same. A final decision on the program is yet to come, but it has surely raised tensions in the government regarding American’s working conditions.

Project 2025 essentially aims at putting the interests of the American workforce first, which aligns perfectly with Donald Trump’s previous comments about building with the Americans and for the Americans. All the businesses owned by Trump have a long history of hiring foreign workers adding to the contradiction that the public was not looking for. Moreover, the concerning part is that the foreign labors being hired for the same are also not receiving any over-the-top treatment. All in all, everyone is struggling and now America awaits a regime that will rectify the current situation.

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