‘Indians will continue to work in US;Trump’s first interest is to protect America’s interest’

Following up on US President Donald Trump’s pledge to put America first and increasing oversight of H-1B visas, which are central to the business models of the Indian IT industry, a legislation has been introduced in the US House of Representatives mandating that the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders should be doubled. This is meant as a disincentive to hire foreign workers. Harmeet Dhillon, a noted Republican National Convention committeewoman from California spoke to Rohit E David on changing US policies would mean for Indian workers, China and the changing global power system:
The president does not generally unilaterally make policies and change the law. President Barack Obama’s frequent habit of issuing executive orders was an anomaly that we do not expect to see repeated with President Donald Trump. So our new president will have to work hand in hand with Congress to change this and other laws. Some of the changes proposed to the H-1B worker programme include increasing the prevailing wage for such workers, which will only benefit them, while making American workers first, and America should be no exception.
Our president’s first goal needs to be protecting American trade and American interests, and the baseline for that is to insist on the enforcement and honouring of existing laws.We cannot continue to allow foreign countries to cheat on trade agreements, to copy our products with impunity, break the law, and benefit their own economies at the expense of American markets. We are entitled to insist on a level playing field.
Ours is a nation of immigrants – legal and illegal. I am a proud immigrant and United States citizen. A country that cannot control its own borders, is no longer a nation, but rather just an exploited thoroughfare.India carefully controls its borders. Proper border enforcement will stem the influx of illegal – not legal – immigrants, as well as the drug crime, human trafficking, and substantial welfare burdens imposed by many in these undocumented populations.
Trump has shown his ability to change his mind on issues when persuaded that a prior viewpoint was incorrect or inconsistent with other goals. I fully expect that he will do the same as president.
China has benefitted from lax enforcement of existing legislation and agreements it has agreed to, some of which include sanctions for failure to honour these agreements.China can avoid a trade war by its own actions – honouring its agreements and honouring existing laws by not dumping on our markets, not violating international agreements. Whether or not there are sanctions, is entirely within China’s hands.
We expect to see him, in conjunction with Congress, take immediate action on immigration (depor tation of illegal alien criminals, border enforcement, crackdowns on sanctuary cities that flout federal law); work to repeal and replace Obamacare; institute tax reform for businesses and individuals to stimulate jobs growth and GDP; and undertake to identify and eliminate job-killing.