DC Edit | Amid H-1B row, can Trump, Musk check MAGA fallout?

As his voters come mainly from the manufacturing belt in the US, Trump has mostly focused his attention — both during his first term as well as during his campaign in 2024 — on jobs shipped to China, and other countries. However, he had never spoken against granting temporary visas for highly educated foreign professionals through H-1B visas, though he aired his opposition to illegal migration to the United States and birthright citizenship.

India and people of Indian origin escaped scrutiny by MAGA proponents until Trump announced his key officials in his upcoming term as the President. He had selected at least six Americans of Indian origin for top posts such as Vivek Ramaswamy, along with Elon Musk will head the new department of government efficiency (DOGE), Tulsi Gabbard as the director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel, director of the FBI, Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney-general for Civil Rights, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, director, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Sriram Krishnan, senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence (AI)

The issue caught fire after a right-wing influencer Laura Loomer criticised Trump’s selection and accused Musk and Ramaswamy of undermining American workers. She accused Krishnan of being an “India First” operative whose goal was to “replace American workers.”

Musk fired back at his critics, who were the core support base of Trump and warned of going to war on this issue. He pointed out that America had benefited from foreign talent and that he had named his car Tesla after Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest engineers ever and a penniless immigrant, whose inventions led to American dominance in electricity generation.

Caught off-guard by civil war among his supporters, Trump tried to salvage the situation by supporting the idea of welcoming the top talent to America to create more jobs for his country. Nevertheless, his supporters did not budge. They pointed out that people hired through H-1B visas were not exceptional talent by any standards as evident from their annual compensation of $80,000 and $120,000. They accused companies, especially those from India, of mass hiring Indians for low paying jobs to make more profits.

While Trump has not yet spoken out against IT jobs, one cannot be sure of his support for hiring foreign talent for the technology sector as the only thing that is predictable about Trump is his unpredictability. The Indian technology companies, which celebrated Trump’s victory, must remain prepared for any blowback from the US President under pressure from his core MAGA supporters.

The H-1B flareup also teaches a lesson or two to political leaders across the world: If you encourage divisiveness, it will get out of your hand at some point in time. One should not play with the fire of xenophobia for short-term gains and sacrifice long-term interests of the country.