Will America's latest policy on H1B visas impact India? Or, has US President Donald Trump managed to smash America right on her foot? Industry bodies, industry professionals and social media have different reactions.
A section of users on X believe that the policy could adversely impact America's ability to innovate. Hours after Trump's proclamation of a 465 times increment in visa processing charges for H1B visas, X saw viral reactions with H1Bvisa trending as the top-most keyword.
Amitabh Kant, the former CEO of Niti Aayog took opined that America's latest policy would "choke innovation" while it would "turbo-charge India's (Innovation quotient).
His message was:
Journalist Latha Venkatesh reacted to his message stating, "Agree Sir, This will lessen India's brain drain...", however others chipped in responding why it would not.
Among those espousing concerns, industry body NASSCOM released a statement stating, "adjustments of this nature can potentially have ripple effects on America’s innovation ecosystem and the wider job economy."
Explaining how the US actions were likely to affect Americans, C.P. Gurnani, former CEO & Managing Director of Tech Mahindra, was quoted as saying, "This is actually restricting the sponsor companies, and this is making American companies less competitive because the producer is not paying the taxes; ultimately, the buyer is the one paying the taxes."
WHAT US COMMERCE SECRETARY LUTNICK SAID?
Speaking to reporters, US commerce Secretary said, "the employment-based Green Card program let in 281,000 people a year, but they were 5x more likely to go on assistance programs of the government. We were taking in the bottom quartile...We're going to only take extraordinary people at the very top."
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US-INDIA RELATIONS?
A slew of America's policies are concerning for India's interests. The first being the 50% tariff imposition. On Friday, the US department withdrew sanctions waiver for Chabahar port in Iran denting India's interests. Although America is yet to officially state the reasons behind such policies, US President has been quoted stating several times that hurting countries such as India and China would help convince Russia to "stop the war in Ukraine".
On Saturday there had been reports of India's commerce secretary Piyush Goyal's probable visit to America to continue trade-talks. Previously, a meeting between of the trade departments of the two countries had been held in May.
Meanwhile, on X, many netizens expressed that this was not the end of the world. Ecommerce player Snapdeal's founder Kunal Bahl shared how he got back from a setback.
