WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to start selling a “gold card” visa with a potential pathway to U.S. citizenship for $5 million, seeking to have that new initiative replace a 35-year-old visa program for investors.
“I happen to think it’ll sell like crazy. It’s a market,” Trump said. “But we’ll know very soon.”
During the first meeting of his second-term Cabinet, Trump suggested that the new revenue generated from the program could be used to pay off the country’s debt.
“If we sell a million, that’s $5 trillion dollars,” he said. Of the demand from the business community to participate, he said “I think we will sell a lot because I think there’s really a thirst.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters during the same meeting that Trump’s initiative would replace the EB-5 program, which offers U.S. visas to investors who spent about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.