Trump Unveils $5 Million ‘Gold Card’ Visa, Calls It a ‘Bargain’:

US President Donald Trump remarked that it will “sell like crazy” following the issuance of the ‘gold card’ visa.

During his first cabinet meeting of the second term on Wednesday, Trump proposed introducing both a new ‘gold card’ visa and US citizenship for $5 million. This would demolish the previous solution for gaining citizenship through investing which has been in place for 35 years. “I will tell you, the people that can pay $5 million, they’re going to create jobs. They’re going to spend a lot of money on jobs…So, they’re going to be hiring people, they’re going to be bringing people in and companies in,” Donald Trump told reports at the White House.

"The new strategy proposed by Trump will do away with the EB-5 program that supplies US visas to investor who put $1 million in a business that employs a minimum of 10 people.” Trump said “Non citizens” would also benefit from golden visa sponsors allowing employers to hire them to work in the US.

Using the Portuguese example, several other European countries now offer some form of citizenship by investment. Trump claimed that businesses would utilize the golden-visa scheme to employ non-citizens.

Lutnick continued, “Gold card holders will qualify for tremendously world class status, which will enable us to earn additional benefits as 'citizens' of the target state.” France and Spain issue golden visas, or permanent residency, to foreign investors who spend €500,000 ($524,000) on a qualifying fund.

According to BBC, during the fiscal year of 2024, the State Department issued a record high of over 12,000 EB-5 visas.

In response to his commitment of a certain amount of jobs within the US, Trump replied with a resounding “no, no”. “That aforementioned sum does not equal the amount of job builders there will be. Successful people will be there or college students will get hired – it’s like paying an athlete for a bonus. Few companies, such as Apple, will come out and hire, let’s say, five candidates for a total of five million and boom, they get five people,” said Trump.

The US president also did not give much information regarding how the new program would be operated or structured.

The EB-5 visas are limited in quantity, but the Republican president stated, “Federal government could easily issue 10 million ‘gold cards’ to aid in the deficit.”