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New Delhi: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the new H-1B visa policy of President Donald Trump is to temporarily bring in skilled foreign workers to the country to train Americans for high-skilled jobs, rather than depending on overseas labour for the long term.
He made the remarks after Trump said the US needs to bring in foreign talent for certain fields, despite his government's aggressive immigration reforms. Bessent, in a conversation with Fox News, called the new H-1B visa approach of Trump a "knowledge transfer" that aims to restore the country's manufacturing sector after decades of outsourcing.
He said, "For 20-30 years, we have not offshored precision manufacturing jobs... We can't snap our fingers and say you are going to have ships overnight. We want to bring the semiconductor industry back to the US. There will be big facilities in Arizona," before adding, "So, I think the President's vision here is to bring in overseas workers who have the skills for three, five, or seven years to train the US workers. Then they can go home, and US workers will take over." Bessent also spoke on the row surrounding foreign workers and the allegation that they are taking up the jobs of Americans, and said, "An American can't have that job – not yet."
He added, "We haven't built ships or semiconductors here for years. Overseas partners coming in, teaching American workers, that's a home run." He said Trump's new way of tackling the H-1B visa conundrum shows his broader push to revive critical industries and reduce dependence on imports of labour.
Earlier, Trump said the US needs skilled professionals from abroad, even as his administration has tightened visa rules, making it harder for companies to hire foreign workers. In an interview with Fox News, host Laura Ingraham asked Trump whether his administration planned to reduce the priority of H-1B visas for skilled foreign employees.
When Trump said, “You also do have to bring in talent,” Ingraham insisted that the US already had “plenty of talented people here,” to which the US President disagreed, saying, “No.” He said, "You don’t have certain talents. And you have to, people have to learn. You can’t take people off, like an unemployment line, and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory. We’re going to make missiles."
