The real target of the changes to the H-1B Visa and how it further influences globalised hierarchies
Recently, Ben Cohen, co-founder of the popular ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s explained, on The Journal that ‘business is the most powerful force in our society,’ where its only purpose is to maximise profits. There is now a powerful synergy between states and corporations, as emphasised in the free market and the push for privatisation and deregulation since the administrations of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. After all, President Trump and his former special government employee, Elon Musk, are businessmen whose affluence grants them political influence.
In the modern era, businesses exert influence on the technological sector. Techno-capitalism, a joint venture of technology and business, has drastically advanced globalisation. Thanks to the internet, a simple phone call or the click of a button can exchange resources and assets. This also includes the ability to hire highly skilled foreign workers, as is the case with the H-1B visa.
H-1B Visas are reserved for specialised, highly skilled foreign workers sponsored by employers in the U.S. to work for their company. The programme has an annual cap of 85,000 visa holders, a number that President Trump has maintained. Instead, the application fee has risen from $5,000 to $100,000 to deter companies from abusing cheaper foreign labour costs, boost American wages in IT, and raise government revenue.
Globalists like Thomas Friedman claim that corporate technological development has levelled the playing field and created a ‘flat world’ regarding our global economic system. This means that the mobility of workers and business production is mapped around the world, not only contributing to different regions of economic growth but also contributing to human capital, American and Indian alike. Even Silicon Valley, an epicentre of American technological innovation, has begun educating foreign professionals who can promote certain technologies and strategies overseas, as another form of corporate and technological globalisation. A prominent U.S. company like IBM can hire a French worker and send them to its location in Bengaluru, while hiring an Indian worker for its U.S. office through work visas.
The US tech industry has led the world in patents and innovation, which has only been compounded by globalisation’s consequent decrease in material and labour costs. However, globalisation is inherently dialectical as industries must pursue technological opportunities while balancing political campaigns of those who have been negatively impacted by technological domination. Globalisation integrates a universal promise of free market movement and modernisation, but there is fragmentation. In recent news, anti-tourism and anti-immigration protests have sprouted in correlation to globalisation’s negative effects. The last example of integration and fragmentation represents one binary of globalisation dialects – opposing forces.
On 19th September, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick backed U.S. President Donald Trump in saying ‘If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs.’ Lutnick’s statement follows the reasoning for Trump’s recent series of trade deals and tariff wars, encouraging a shift toward American investment and local labour sourcing. As a result of recent anti-immigration sentiment, Trump has reformed the H-1B Visa, especially when the demand for skilled professionals is at an all-time high.
It is not hard to find talented IT workers in software development, artificial intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity in American companies through visa channels. In a world of constant technological innovation, experts are needed in AI, machine learning, and cloud computing. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Deloitte sponsor about 70 percent of H-1B visa recipients from India and another 10 percent from China. Heated debate often revolved around further immigration into the U.S. and how American workers are negatively impacted. However, the fate of the tech industry’s political-economic influence is at play. The potential negative impacts of immigration to the US on American workers have sparked a heated debate – the US’s technological, economic, and political dominion hangs in the balance.
After the announcement of changes to visa costs, panic swept through Silicon Valley, with tech companies advising their H-1B employees not to leave the country, in fear they would not get back in. It has since been confirmed that the changes in regulation only apply to new applicants.
Heads of the tech conglomerates are themselves divided, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Zoom’s Eric Yuan, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, who came to the U.S. with the help of the H-1B Visa. Last December on X, ‘the reason I’m in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B.’ Those like OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman believe Trump’s regulation will instil a higher talent standard even if it means paying ten times the price: ‘We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and ...aligning financial incentives seems good to me.’posted on X ‘the reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B.’ Those like OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman believe Trump’s regulation will instil a higher talent standard even if it means paying ten times the price: ‘We need to get the smartest people in the country and streamlining that process and ... aligning financial incentives seems good to me.’
This shift has created a rivalry between those like Elon Musk, claiming that visas are essential to American economic growth, and those like former White House adviser Steve Bannon, accusing Musk of trying to create a ‘techno-feudal’ global system. The political-economic fight has even included a lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court against Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, alleging that it fired a disproportionate number of U.S. employees in favour of foreigners.
It is true that foreign workers have the skills which the tech industry fill the IT talent gap, but Trump’s policies do not encourage the fluidity of the labour force, previously mentioned above. Instead, his administration enacts policies and reforms like the H-1B Visa kills in which the tech industry fills the IT talent gap, but Trump’s policies do not encourage the fluidity of the labour force, previously mentioned above. Instead, his administration enacts policies and reforms like the H-1B Visa to increase American talent initiatives and education, rooted in populist agendas. The emphasis of middle-class workers often feels the backlash of globalising businesses and the modernising function of complex technologies on which tech industries rely. As a result, industries with large numbers of high-skilled foreign workers are targeted, not only rooted in anti-immigration but also as a consequence of globalisation and modernity.
When startup tech industries prove unable to hire employees on an H-1B, companies will return to outsourcing through foreign companies, supporting overseas economies rather than the U.S. This means more foreign tech workers may go to other countries with emerging tech industries like the U.K., China, and Canada, which have launched new visa programs attracting foreign STEM workers. On the other hand, workers might contribute to the growth of their own economies and help to build a local economic identity. Dileep Krishna, an Indian entrepreneur, wrote, ‘Here’s to the next generation of Indian talent with global exposure and coming back to India and building for the global markets.’
Consequences of the H-1B changes follow the flow of dialectical globalisation, building industry and human capital across the globe and gradually levelling the playing field of technological innovation. Although the path laid by Trump has its own opposing forces, advocating for American talent, the economy’s techno-capital structure allows corporations like those in the U.S. tech industry to move beyond the U.S. border in search of higher profit by reducing production costs. This is where strategies like offshoring in Bengaluru and Beijing will perpetually challenge policies like Trump’s H-1B Visa reform and embed themselves in an international supply chain.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
