Donald Trump 2.0 and His Toxic Madness: How Methodical and Some Implications

[Sukla Sen]

Some relief!?

<https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-h1b-visa-fee-status-2025-9>

AA. All said and done, Donald Trump -- no doubt a diehard right-winger -- is after all and above all a mad man.

He's a symbol and expression of xenophobic insanity sweeping across much of the Western Democratic World.

Here's an extremely telling comment: “The (American) working class elected Trump. This is their president. Trump is hated because he is the representative of those whom the ruling elites despise—the working class."

(Ref.: <https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/03/done-paul-craig-roberts/>.)

The author obviously considers that the American white workers, just because they constitute the overwhelming(?) majority, are *the* representative of the whole of the American working class. The minority blacks, Latinos and other immigrants just don't count.

In a strange and twisted way, Trump does in fact represent the ugliest sections of the big capital and also the bulk of White American workers.

And it's these workers who constitute the mass base of xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny etc.

There's no running away from that highly inconvenient but incontrovertible "fact".

We'll of course hate to acknowledge that actual realities on the ground that have placed our good old venerated Marx right on his head.

(Let's also not forget that Jeremy Corbyn, no doubt a very earnest Leftist, was also very much a backer of the (xenophobic) Brexit.)

BB. In the process, Trump is out to demolish a very major pillar of economic neo-liberalism, i.e. Globalisation.

And upset the whole world order.

CC. However, even in its heydays, globalisation actually meant globalisation of capital and business.

The obstructions put up by national boundaries got very significantly, though far from completely, lowered.

So as to enable capital to maximise profit.

But, the movements of human labour, though increased manifold, still remained far more restrained.

DD. Trump is out to put the clock back and destroy American democracy towards that goal.

If the economy also goes under, that'd be just collateral damage.

EE. He's in the process also posing a (fatal?) threat to the global ecology and thereby to the very prospects of continued survival of the human (together with many other) species.

In this, Trump, Putin, Xi, Modi all are, despite their mutual bickering, actually comrades-in-arns.

[Also relevant, in order to gauge the extent of malevolent madness:

<https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Baht6qTyt/>

Once again, panic and chaos after a half-assed rollout. This time, world-wide. 

On Friday, Trump suddenly announced that H-1B visas, used heavily by US tech companies to bring in well-educated workers, were going up in price.  

How much? Oh just a little. The fee had ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 per application. Now it would cost ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. 

Yes. $100,000 dollars. Oh. And the change was effective immediately. As of midnight on Sunday. 

Trump was very proud of this "Proclamation", which he signed into law with yet another Executive Order, and said that tech companies would be pleased with the changes.

“I think they’re going to be very happy. Everyone’s going to be happy,” Trump said

They weren't happy. Nobody was happy. Nobody at all. 

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Companies frantically contacted their foreign employees, telling them to either stay in the US, or return immediately if they were abroad. Weddings and vacations were abandoned as visa holders returned without even packing. One person reportedly paid $8,000 to get flights back from Japan. 

Meanwhile, planes on US tarmacs were delayed for up to two hours while passengers already on board to leave the US de-planed, forfeiting all the money they had paid for their flights and vacations. Most were not even able to retrieve their luggage.

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The result was pandemonium, on a global scale. 

And so, the walk-back by the Trump administration began, first with some clarification posted on X by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Saturday. 

For the first time, everyone found out that the $100K would be a one-time fee, not a yearly fee, and that it would NOT apply to current visa holders. 

Well, THAT would have been nice to know. That is, if that HAD been the actual plan, and not some tweak that Trump and Lutnick came up with on the fly Saturday, in response to the furor they had unleashed. 

Leavitt wrote: "Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will not be charged $100,000 to re-enter.

"H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would."

She added that the new fee would only apply to "new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders".

However, questions STILL remain about HOW the Trump administration will implement a system to accept payments, as some agencies are STILL waiting on guidance from the White House. 

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Oh, but Trump blew all that off on Saturday. He decided, of course, to blame ALL the "misunderstandings" on "FAKE NEWS" created by "others with agendas". 

And he could not understand why everyone, from visa holders, to tech companies, to his corporate donors, to our foreign trading partners  were so angry. 

NBC News reports that  India’s government said the measure was likely to have “humanitarian consequences by way of the disruption caused for families,” adding the “full implications of the measure” were being studied.

India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7%, according to government data.  

New Delhi and Washington are set to resume trade negotiations on the Trump administration’s steep tariffs, but in a sign of how ties have strained Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked citizens in a public address Sunday to increase use of locally-made products rather than foreign ones.

South Korea, which is still reeling from a Sept. 4 raid by immigration authorities on a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, also said it was paying close attention to the change.

"When the government announces a major new policy potentially affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in an extremely concrete way" Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council said on X. “AT THE VERY LEAST it owes people precise information." (NBC News)

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Millions of people world-wide apply for H-1B visas, but since only 85,000 visas are issued each year there is a lottery for those who end up qualifying. 

American companies have the edge on getting the visas for their applicants who have already been vetted and have a job waiting for them. 

And American companies hire them because they are not only well educated, and speak English, they are CHEAP. They will accept a salary and benefit package for $60K, where Americans expect to be paid over $100K for the same job. 

Trump had originally been fine with this arrangement when he was buddies with Elon Musk, who hired a great many of these workers.  

But now the constant financial advisor at his side is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who convinced Trump that the arrangement unfairly undercuts US workers, who would be hired instead, if companies had to pay $100K for a visa on top of the foreign worker's salary. 

Sounds good, right? But here is the rub. Big corporations can afford to take the hit, whether they pay more for an American worker, or pay more for a foreign visa. 

Smaller tech companies cannot afford the hit. And this could impact them to the point where they could not be competitive, and either have to shut down or be bought out by a big corporation. 

Mergers are the name of the game. The race is on by big corporations to swallow up every competitor in sight. To grow as fast and as big as possible in the new "Robber Baron" days of the Trump administration. Size is wealth and size is power.

And Howard Lutnick, a billionaire with 60% majority stakeholder in Cantor Fitzgerald, who reportedly gave over $400,000 to Trump’s campaign and affiliated committees, and $6 million to MAGA Inc, and is affiliated with Project 2025, is all about wealth and power.

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There was a second big announcement that was part of Trump's Proclamation on Friday. 

He was finally unveiling his shiny new "GOLD VISA", branded with his very own face and name and signature, instead of the US Government. 

Foreign nationals who contribute at least $1 million to the Commerce Department will be eligible for an expedited path to an immigrant visa. Corporations can secure the same privilege for employees, with a $2-million payment.  

They will have to pay an additional $15K for "vetting fees" to qualify for green card status. 

The Gold Card will replace the existing EB-1 and EB-2 visa categories, which currently provide green cards for individuals with “exceptional ability” in business and other fields. 

(YES! That is the "Einstein"  visa Melania Trump used to enter the country. As a .... model. She had been trying to apply for a green card visa, so she could work here. But she applied for the EB-1 visa after she started dating Donald Trump. She was approved in 2001.)

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE! 

Lutnick also announced plans for a $5-million “Platinum Card” visa that would allow recipients to stay in the United States for up to 270 days annually without paying taxes on non-U.S. income. That proposal, which does not include a pathway to citizenship, would require congressional approval. A federal website has already opened a waiting list, he said. 

Stay tuned. They'll figure this all out. Eventually. 

Meanwhile, it is already being challenged in the courts.

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Photo: © Alex Brandon/AP]

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