Donald J. Trump first became a presidential candidate nearly 10 years ago.
Our now 47th commander in chief, whether as candidate, or president has been reliably consistent in the messaging of his goals for our nation.
Plainly and frequently, he's declared that he believes the globalist policies of recent past administrations have cost our country trillions of dollars in wealth.
As a result, he's courageously embarked on a path which he believes will help to turn that around.
Many are familiar with his successful efforts to stem illegal immigration.
Other policies for which he is known include seeking peace through strength, to avoid war, as well as ridding our nation of "Woke" DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies.
Such policies, and the ideology behind them, are destroying America.
President Trump has also been more than candid, that he's convinced tariffs, when properly applied, will help light a fire of prosperity in the United States by bringing back manufacturing, which has been lost to other countries for decades.
Mr. Trump has explained on numerous occasions that he believes manufacturing jobs have moved to other countries due to unequal tariffs.
In short, his contention is that we allow other countries to import products into the U.S. at very low tariff rates.
Simultaneously, many of these countries have much higher tariffs on products made in the U.S. and shipped to those countries.
The result is that many manufacturers have moved their plants to places globally, where they can get cheap labor, thus allowing them to produce their products for much less than they could in America.
They then ship these products to the U.S. consumer market.
Even after they pay low U.S. tariffs, they still realize a nice profit because of their reduced labor, reduced environmental, and business operating costs in other countries.
This president believes that re-evaluating our tariff structure, and strategically raising tariffs to the point where the cost for companies to produce overseas no longer holds an advantage over producing here in the U.S., will cause companies to move manufacturing to our country.
Although he’s only been in office for two months, there are signs that his approach will work. One recent example of this is Honda, which recently announced that they have changed their plan to manufacture a new Civic from Mexico to Indiana as a result of Trump’s tariffs.
Announcements like this indicate a potentially very good future for American manufacturing. On the other hand, if this works as the president believes, it will also present us with the challenge of filling all the jobs which will be created.
If you ask enough business owners, you'll learn that we already have a labor shortage in this country.
To achieve the president’s vision, we’ll need to solve this problem.
One way to begin would be to retain workers who are already performing in this country, millions of whom are from other countries and working under the radar because they lack proper documentation.
The reasons for this could be many, perhaps it is because they overstayed as a student, or for work purposes, or they're here on a visa they received years ago.
Although we should not provide these folks with a path to citizenship, it makes good sense to develop a process which would allow them to continue working to support their families and our country.
This writer believes that implementing such a procedure, one which an immigration tariff on employers could be a big win for employers, employees, and U.S. citizens.
Under this process, employers who suspect they have undocumented workers could pay a fee to the government to put those workers through a vetting process.
If the workers pass vetting, they would be issued a long-term work visa.
Upon issuance of this visa, the employer — not the employee — would then begin to pay a $2.00 per hour tariff for each hour worked by each employee enrolled in this visa program.
There were 8.3 million undocumented workers in 2022, but let’s assume that number is now 10 million for ease of calculation.
We'll also assume each employee works a 60-hour week.
Based on these numbers, the tariff would amount to $20 per employee, per day.
This would mean the government could collect almost $200 million per day and $62.4 billion per year from this tariff.
This money could be dedicated to something that would benefit all Americans, such as helping to bolster the OASDI Social Security trust fund, which is projected to run short of funds in 2033.
Last year, almost $67 billion was paid out of the trust fund to make sure all Social Security recipients received their full benefits.
The employer tariff would have cut the drain on the trust fund down to below $5 billion.
If you also consider that DOGE scrubbed 3.2 million "dead" names from the Social Security database very recently, the combination of the tariff with the scrubbed names would have eliminated the 2024 drain of the trust fund.
Although we still need a permanent solution to solidify Social Security for the long haul, new revenue from the employer tariff each year would help to extend the time frame of full benefits well beyond the current 2033 projections.
It would also help domestic businesses, particularly manufacturers, to retain employees.
It seems to this writer, both of these prospects would be wins for both the American people and for workers who contribute to our economy, because they would be able to come out of the shadows, and quite respectably so.
Joe from Texas is a family man with children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. He's experienced tremendous success and lived the American Dream. His beliefs are both straightforward and deeply held. He believes in God, his family, and the United States of America. For more information, please visit www.JoeFromTexas.com. Read Joe Penland's Reports — More Here.