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Trump breaks with base on skilled workers
Trump said companies investing billions of dollars in these high-tech plants need room to bring in their own specialists at the start.
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Staff Reporter - Fri, 21, Nov 2025
- 02:06 EST
- 12
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a ceremony marking the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States at the Pentagon, in Washington D.C., U.S., September 11, 2025. / REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
At the U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum on Nov. 19 President Donald Trump made an unusually blunt case for welcoming skilled foreign workers into the country — even if it stirs discomfort among some of his most loyal supporters.
Speaking to an audience of executives and investors, Trump said the United States is entering a new phase of advanced manufacturing, with large facilities for chips, phones, and missile components being built across the country. And those factories, he argued, simply cannot run without outside expertise.
Trump said companies investing billions of dollars in these high-tech plants need room to bring in their own specialists at the start. “People have to be taught this is something they’ve never done,” he said.
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“But we’re not going to be successful if we don’t allow people that invest billions of dollars in plants and equipment to bring a lot of their people from their country to get that plant open, operating and working. I’m sorry.”
The comments put the president at odds with parts of the MAGA movement, which has long been wary of visa programs such as the H-1B. Trump didn’t shy away from addressing that tension.
“I love my conservative friends. I love MAGA. But this is MAGA,” he told the room, adding that borrowing foreign talent temporarily is not a betrayal of his agenda, but a necessary step toward rebuilding American industry.
In Trump’s view, foreign engineers and technicians are not intended to replace American workers but to train them. “Those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips, and in a short period of time, our people are going to be doing great. And those people can go home,” he said. The audience responded with applause.
His stance follows criticism he received last week in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, where he questioned that the United States already has a lot of skilled labor to employ in hi-tech factories. Upon Ingraham’s response that America had “plenty of talented people here,” Trump replied, “No, you don’t,” adding that “people have to learn.”
On Nov. 19, Trump again insisted that these facilities are too complex to staff with inexperienced workers. When nations build sophisticated technology plants on U.S. soil, he said, “They’re going to have to bring thousands of people with them, and I’m going to welcome those people.”
As an example, he pointed to South Korean specialists who recently returned to work at an electric-vehicle plant in Georgia after an earlier immigration dispute. To Trump, that episode proved his broader argument: America’s industrial revival, he said, depends on learning first — and then leading.
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