Trump’s speech may worry Chinese exporters and Indian workers

LAHORE: If the new American President Donald Trump practically does what he authoritatively said and pledged in his strong-worded inaugural speech Friday “America first, buy American and hire American”, then worrisome problems may soon arise for Chinese exporters, two million Indian workers in the United States and over 11.4 million illegal immigrants residing across the country’s 50 odd states.

Currently, China happens to be the largest trading partner of the United States with a $598 billion two-way volume of goods traded during 2015.

While US exports to China had totalled $116 billion, the world superpower had imported Chinese products valued at $482 billion, meaning thereby that the US goods trade deficit with China had stood at $366 billion in 2015!

India: If the use of H-1B American visas for skilled Indians is limited in days to come, it will hit India hard. In 2015, India had received $69 billion or about 4 percent of its GDP in remittances from Indians employed overseas, broadly referred to as NRIs or non-resident Indians.

Of this remittances figure of $69 billion, India had received nearly $11 billion from the United States in 2015, ranking third after Mexico and China, said a Pew Research Centre report.

(Reference: The September 1, 2016 edition of the Times of India)

There are 14.2 million Indian migrants worldwide. After the United Arab Emirates (2,852,000), the United States (2,061,000) is the second-most common destination. The largest populations of Indian immigrants have settled in California (19 percent), New Jersey (11 percent), and Texas (9 percent).

According to May 6, 2015 report of the US Migration Institute, Indian migrants had begun arriving in the United States as early as 1820.

The report said: “As of 2013, more than 2 million Indian-born immigrants resided in the United States, accounting for 4.7 percent of the 41.3 million foreign-born populations. As of 1960, there were only 12,000 Indian immigrants in the United States, representing less than 0.5 percent of the 9.7 million foreign-born populations at the time. In contrast to the initial wave, the majority of post-1965 arrivals from India were young, educated urban dwellers, with strong English language skills. From 1980 to 2013, the Indian immigrant population increased ten-fold, from 206,000 to 2.04 million, roughly doubling every decade”.

The US Migration Institute had added: “Today, Indian citizens are the top recipients of temporary high-skilled worker H-1B visas, accounting for 70 percent of the 316,000 H-1B petitions (initial and continuing employment) approved by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in fiscal year (FY) 2014. India is also the second-largest sending country of international students to the United States after China: Close to 103,000 Indian-born students were enrolled in US educational institutions in 2013-14”.

As far as global migrant remittances figure is concerned, the Pew Research Centre report of September 2016 had stated that in all, $133.5 billion in remittances was sent from the United States to other countries in 2015.

Trump’s inaugural speech will also add to the miseries of the illegal immigrants living in the US.

In January 2012, the United States Department of Homeland Security had estimated that 11.4 million unauthorised immigrants were living in America.