Trump’s Golden Ticket: Citizenship for Sale at $5 Million

Donald Trump’s politics are not nationalist, but Business First.

On Feb. 25, 2025, President Donald Trump announced a “Gold Card” visa program that offers wealthy foreign investors a path to U.S. citizenship for a $5 million fee. At the time, Trump said “We're gonna be selling a gold card. You have a green card, and this is a gold card. We're gonna be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that’s gonna give you green card privileges plus. It's gonna be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald who has a net worth of roughly $2 billion, defended this program during an interview on Fox News.

“(Gold card applicants will be) deeply vetted, and we said that from the first minute,” Secretary Lutnick reassured Fox News host Brett Baier. “These are going to be great global citizens who are going to bring an entrepreneurial spirit, capacity, and growth to America. If one of them comes in, they have the jobs they’re going to bring with them, the businesses they're going to bring with them, and they’re going to pay taxes as well. So, this is huge money for America.”

Another point Lutnick raised in making the case for this new visa program is that it would be less bureaucratic than the EB-5 visa program. Under the EB-5 visa program, also known as the Immigrant Investor Program, foreign investors who make substantial capital investments in U.S. businesses and create jobs for American workers can obtain permanent residency. However, with the Gold Card program, those requirements would be scrapped and any foreigner with deep pockets could effectively buy American citizenship.

Trump boasts that this program could generate trillions in revenue, reduce the national debt, and attract affluent individuals who would contribute economically through spending, taxes, and job creation.

As of now, the program reportedly has 250,000 applicants, though the implementation details remain unclear. Trump has hinted at selling up to one million cards.

While many Trump apologists were enthralled by Trump’s proposal. populist commentator Ryan Girdusky observed that getting rid of the EB-5 visa program’s regulatory hurdles could make it much easier for unscrupulous oligarchs to settle down in the United States:

“Also, Lutnick and Trump both say it’s less bureaucratic than the EB-5 visa - the problem investors and scam artists who use the EB-5 visa complain that there are too many strings attached that require investors to hire Americans and create jobs in low-income regions of the country. So under the less string-attached Gold Card, if a billionaire from Saudi Arabia wants to buy American citizenship but has to set up a company, he makes a nonsense LLC out of Delaware and hires nobody; he’s technically created a business and received American citizenship. Either you have the strings attached and create the jobs, or you’re just selling our citizenship to the highest bidder because it means nothing.”

With respect to the Gold Card, this is just an invitation for oligarchs from China, Gulf Arab monarchies, India, Israel, and other countries with racially alien civilizations to loot the United States and even outright colonize it. Pace, free-market advocates and boosters of globalization, blood remains thicker than water. Foreign millionaires who set up shop may be productive and law-abiding, but they’ll be much more committed to using the profits of their entrepreneurial activity to advance their ethnic group’s interests in the long-term.

Outlandish as the Gold Card proposal may be for a politician who markets himself as a nationalist, this program aligns with Trump’s real political ethos — transactional politics. In politics, actions speak louder than words. No matter how hard Trump tries to boast about his America First credentials, he governs like a typical pro-business Republican who views the United States as an economic zone, not a nation-state rooted in a cohesive ethnic identity.

As a seasoned real estate professional and showman, Trump takes this transactional political behavior to absurd levels. One needn't look further at his suggestion to turn Gaza into a luxury resort to understand how Trump’s political worldview is economically reductionist through and through.

Whatever nationalist platform Trump campaigned on in previous election cycles has exited the venue in his second administration. Just look at Trump’ dismal deportation numbers. Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations has become a total dud. According to Reuters, Trump deported 37,660 illegal aliens in his first month in office.

For perspective, in Joe Biden’s last year in office, the U.S. government was deporting 57,000 illegal aliens on a monthly basis. Not to mention, Barack Obama — no paragon of immigration restriction — was deporting 385,000 illegal aliens annually, with a peak of 438,421 deportations in fiscal year 2013.

To its credit, the Trump administration recently carried out the deportation of over 200 suspected members of the Venezuela Tren de Aragua gang. Despite the show the Trump administration put out on social media, these deportations are a drop in the bucket when one looks at how many illegal aliens remain in the United States.

In an eye-opening report published earlier this month, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found there are roughly 18.6 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. These numbers may be conservative estimates in the grand scheme of things, with Ann Coulter contending the actual illegal alien figure hovering around 30 million.

The issue with Trump, like virtually all factions of the Republican Party and broader conservative movement, is his take on immigration as a question of legality or productivity as opposed to the cultural compatibility or ethnic background of prospective immigrants. Call it nitpicking, but the assumptions buttressing the Trumpian immigration agenda will put the United States on the road to civilization disappearance, albeit at a slower rate.

One of the ironies of the Trump presidency is that he was elected on a populist energy that categorically rejected the economic reductionist, transactional nature of the liberal international order. But once he entered the White House, Trump was assimilated into the neoliberal borg just like previous presidents since the end of Cold War.

In conclusion, Trump’s Gold Card visa program epitomizes his transactional approach to governance, prioritizing economic contributions over cultural or national cohesion. While the initiative promises significant financial benefits, it risks commodifying U.S. citizenship and undermining the foundational principles of the nation-state by reducing immigration policy to a mere financial exchange.

What the United States needs is full-fledged immigration restriction on all fronts, not another scheme to let foreigners continue to gain influence in the country at the expense of everyday Americans.

---

NEXT:

---

Are you concerned about your wealth during this times of economic uncertainty?

Allocating parts of your wealth into physical precious metals is your best play.

Whether you are:

• An institutional client,

• A HNWI or UHNWI,

• Or a retail customer,

You should contact my good friend Claudio Grass directly.

Claudio is a veteran precious metal investor and wealth manager who has mastered precious markets and knows how to protect people’s wealth no matter the economic and political circumstances.

He will grant you access to his carefully-selected network of trustworthy partners which he has been working for multiple years.

Claudio will advise you on the best players, the appropriate terms, and the necessary safeguards you must take to protect your wealth.

In addition, he will guide you each step of the way when you buy, sell, and store physical bullion.

Your precious metals will be privately stored in Switzerland outside of the banking system, and you can physically pick them up at the vault anytime at your own convenience.

Are you ready to make your wealth recession-proof?

Do not hesitate to contact Claudio; his initial consultations are free.

Contact him below and tell him that José Niño was your reference:

https://claudiograss.ch/contacts/