Are Chinese Tycoons Tempted by Trump’s Gold Card?

Trump’s Gold Card (Screeshot)

[People News] On December 10, the Trump administration in the United States rolled out a new fast-track visa approval program that grants U.S. permanent residency to foreign nationals willing to pay a “donation” of USD 1 million. This immigration program is known as the Trump Gold Card.

Trump also posted on his “Truth Social” platform that the Gold Card would “provide a direct path to citizenship for all qualified and vetted individuals,” and that “our great American companies can finally retain their valuable talent.”

Regarding Trump’s Gold Card immigration program, Chinese tycoons hold a variety of differing views, with some even adopting a wait-and-see attitude. Immigration intermediaries point out that due to limited benefits and existing security concerns, the initial enthusiasm has quickly cooled. However, there were earlier reports stating that those currently most interested are wealthy families from China and India.

According to a report by The Epoch Times, shortly after U.S. President Trump (Donald Trump) took office in February this year, he first proposed the “Gold Card” plan, aimed at providing permanent residency to ultra-wealthy individuals. At the time, Beijing-based immigration consultant Jack Jing received proactive inquiries from seven high-net-worth families.

Mr. Jing is the general manager of the immigration services company WellTrend and has decades of experience serving wealthy Chinese clients.

After the details of Gold Card applications were released in December, he said that his clients have had no plans recently to apply for the Gold Card.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, he said: “After carefully weighing the legal risks and potential visa backlog issues, two of the families abandoned the Gold Card (application) and instead chose U.S. investor immigrant visas backed by congressional legislation, while the remaining families have generally chosen to wait and see.”

Mr. Jing said that Chinese tycoons are concerned about scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and are also worried about potential uncertainty in the future of the Gold Card policy.

Nevertheless, demand among China’s wealthy class for U.S. immigration remains strong—especially since the threshold for the “Gold Card” has been lowered from USD 5 million to USD 1 million. By comparison, Singapore’s investment visa costs close to USD 8 million, while a similar new program in New Zealand costs slightly under USD 3 million. Even investment immigration applications for the South Pacific island nation of Samoa require USD 1.4 million.

Previously, CNBC quoted Reaz Jafri of the international law firm Withers as saying that the Gold Card is too cheap: for just USD 1 million, one can enjoy the U.S. education system, healthcare system, banking system, and financial markets. He believes the threshold should be set at USD 5 million to adequately reflect its exclusivity. Jafri said that when he attended a family office conference in Singapore in September, three families—two from China and one from India—proactively contacted him, expressing interest in purchasing the Gold Card. He estimated that once the program is launched and proves successful, his firm alone could handle “hundreds” of applications.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that the government plans to issue 80,000 Gold Cards, and that together with potential Platinum Cards and the newly increased H-1B visa fee of USD 100,000, the initiative is expected to generate USD 100 billion in revenue for the federal government. △