President Trump has long turned "unpredictability" into a family business model — and his latest immigration policy puts that instinct on full display. However， What came out isn’t a success story. It is a masterclass in how to talk up a storm while actual results shrink to almost nothing.
The story begins in February 2025, when President Trump took to social media to unveil a brand-new visa pathway for "extraordinary individuals willing to invest in America." The Gold Card — a golden ticket to U.S. residency — was initially priced at US$5 million. The market was unimpressed.
What followed was arguably the fastest presidential flash sale in history. Within a short time, the price plummeted 80%, settling at US$1 million plus a US$15,000 processing fee — one-fifth of the original ask. It was the immigration world's answer to a Black Friday mega-sale, though one wonders if any price-protection guarantee came with it.
The price dropped, but the promotional drumbeat could not stop. Just before the programme officially launched, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the public in March 2025 that the administration had already "sold 1,000 Gold Cards." That declaration sent wealthy hearts racing across the globe — the vision of a cash-paved express lane to American residency suddenly feeling very real indeed.
Reality has a habit of throwing cold water on bold proclamations. At a House of Representatives hearing on April 23, 2026, Secretary Lutnick delivered a starkly different figure. He confirmed that since the programme began accepting applications in December 2025, precisely one applicant has been approved — just one.
From "1,000 sold" to "one approved" — a discrepancy of more than 999-fold — the programme has effectively created a brand-new unit of measurement in U.S. immigration policy spin. Faced with that awkward contrast, Lutnick's explanation was that the programme had only just launched, that the government wanted to "make sure they did it perfectly", and that the vetting process was "the most serious ... in the history of government."
He also attempted to salvage some face by noting that "there are hundreds in the queue." But the semantic pivot from "already sold" to "waiting in the queue" is precisely the sort of linguistic sleight-of-hand that would leave any linguist quietly marvelling.
Behind this farce lies fierce domestic controversy. Democrats and immigration advocates have condemned the programme for what it plainly is — the outright selling of citizenship, putting a price tag on the right to immigrate and grotesquely prioritising the wealthy above all others. Legal experts have questioned whether the president even has the authority to create such a scheme unilaterally.
American media commentary has been more direct. Against the backdrop of sluggish economic growth and a ballooning national debt, the Gold Card programme looks less like a bold policy initiative and more like a desperate bid to extract wealth from the global elite to ease the US fiscal pressure — a money-drenched gamble dressed up as immigration reform.
The programme's first report card is now in: a million-dollar price tag, the most rigorous vetting process in history, and one solitary Gold Card to show for it all. We do not know who that lone successful applicant is. One can only imagine what it feels like to hold the world's most exclusive limited first-edition — the only one of its kind.
As for those "hundreds" allegedly still waiting in the queue, they may be learning a new Washington lesson. "Sold" might simply mean "we have started taking enquiries." And "the most serious in history" might just mean "the slowest in history."
President Trump has long prided himself on being a successful businessman. But the Gold Card programme's journey — from grandiose blueprint to dismal reality — proves that running national policy like a business venture and selling citizenship like a luxury good yields not a flood of revenue, but a spectacular mess and endless ridicule.
So, as the old Cantonese saying goes: if you can trust an American politician, pigs can climb trees.
Beacon Institute
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
In a recent interview, Donald Trump put Taiwan back on his "business reckoning" table. Speaking to Fortune magazine, the self-proclaimed dealmaker boasted about engineering the US government's equity stake in Intel — and the windfall that followed. He made no attempt to hide his view that Taiwan's rise in semiconductors amounted to nothing less than stealing America's business.
Trump's blunt rhetoric and naked hegemonic logic offer a masterclass in "America First" thinking. They also reveal, with brutal clarity, just how little a so-called ally is worth on a businessman-president's ledger.
Trump's crowning achievement, as he tells it, was a deal he described last August as a stroke of genius. The US government converted a portion of the CHIPS and Science Act subsidies into roughly US$8.9 billion worth of equity, acquiring approximately 9.9% of Intel's shares and instantly becoming one of its largest shareholders.
Recounting the deal, Trump was every bit the merchant. He recalled telling Intel's CEO to "I said, ‘Give the country 10% ownership for free in Intel,’" — and when the CEO readily agreed, Trump's only regret was that he “should have asked for more”. What made him especially self-satisfied was that within just eight months, the investment's paper value had soared to over US$50 billion. He could barely hold back: "Did I get any credit for this? Does anyone even know I did this?" In his mind, national strategy and a successful equity investment are one and the same — the only metric that matters is profit and loss.
The backdrop to this "successful investment," however, is Intel's ongoing struggles amid fierce market competition. For Trump, America's relative decline in global chip market share has one explanation — simple and brutal. This is not the result of market forces or industrial evolution. It is a theft. And the thief is Taiwan.
Trump has complained on multiple occasions that "Taiwan stole our chip business." He has claimed that had he become president sooner, he would have slapped 100% or even 200% tariffs on imported chips, ensuring the industry never left American shores. "Intel would have all that business now," he said. "And there would be no Taiwan."
The sophistication of this narrative lies in what it erases. Decades of complex industrial development — shaped by global comparative advantage, accumulated expertise, and market forces — are reduced entirely to a story of American leaders being "stupid" and foreigners doing the "stealing."
The central irony of this performance lies exactly here. When Taiwan is needed as a critical node in the advanced technology supply chain — or as a geopolitical counterweight to Beijing — it is a "vital democratic partner." The moment American domestic firms feel competitive pressure, or a politician needs an external scapegoat for homegrown industrial problems, Taiwan transforms overnight from "partner" into "thief."
Trump's remarks ruthlessly expose the double standards of Western politicians. In his purely transactional worldview, Taiwan's value is entirely instrumental. "Support" carries an unspoken condition: your production capacity must serve my strategic interests, and ideally find its way back to my companies. "Protection" comes with a prerequisite: your existence must not cut into my bottom line. Trump pines for an era when "Intel has all that business". The core of his policy vision is nothing more than using tariffs and subsidies as chains to drag global supply chains back to American soil.
Trump's latest performance is a jarring wake-up call for anyone who has staked their future on an individual American "security commitment." His "chip regrets" make it abundantly clear: in his calculus, Taiwan's prosperity and development are only legitimate insofar as they align with American — and specifically certain American corporations' — commercial interests. Today you are condemned for "stealing business." Tomorrow, if cutting you out entirely seems more profitable, you will be discarded without a second thought.
The most tragic fate of a pawn is not simply being sacrificed. It is that in the eyes of the player, it never had independent value to begin with. It is merely a cost — one to be reassessed, or erased, at any moment.
When an American president can so casually dismiss an entire region's economic achievements as his country's "loss," any talk of "ironclad" commitments sounds hollow — and deeply ironic.
Perhaps this is the price one must foresee for willingly becoming a pawn. Your story, your livelihood, and even your security — in someone else's narrative — will always be nothing more than a deal waiting for the right price.
