President Trump’s plan to sell green cards for $5 million each, a program he is calling a “gold card,” has largely been met with a shrug. It’s not clear exactly how the program would work, if it’s legal or how many potential immigrants would really pay $5 million for a path to U.S. citizenship.
But in a niche area of dealmaking, alarm bells are blaring.
Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said on Tuesday that the plan to effectively sell green cards would replace the EB-5 investor visa, a favorite source of funding for major real estate projects.
Massive developments — from New York’s Hudson Yards to the San Francisco Shipyard to, yes, Trump Plaza in Jersey City — have been financed in part by overseas investors applying to the EB-5 program, which grants permanent U.S. residence. Such investors are motivated by a green card, not by maximizing returns, and so for developers their capital tends to be less expensive than borrowing money from a typical commercial lender.
The real estate company owned by the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Kushner Capital, drew scrutiny for its use of EB-5 funding during the first Trump administration.
Overall, the EB-5 program does not bring in a lot of money — about $4 billion last year in the context of the $28 trillion U.S. economy — but it represents a huge profit bump for a small but powerful political contingency: major real estate developers. They are not likely to see EB-5 killed without a fight.
“Cheap capital is the crack cocaine to the real estate industry and probably every other industry,” said Matt Gordon, the C.E.O. of E3iG, which advises both foreign investment-based visa applicants and U.S. companies seeking funding.
“They and their rather large political donations are going to be very motivated.”
Some background: EB-5 visas were established in 1990 to encourage investment in rural and economically depressed areas. Foreigners who invest either $800,000 or $1.05 million, creating at least 10 jobs, are eligible. Initially, that meant directly creating 10 jobs. Now most companies meet the requirement by showing the overall economy will gain 10 jobs as a result of each investor’s funding.
All sorts of companies can seek EB-5 investment — DealBook heard about pharmacies, hospitals, day care centers and manufacturing plants that raised money through the program — but the vast majority are real estate deals.
News of Trump’s gold card plan sent this ecosystem reeling. “Naturally the whole world is panicking,” said Ishaan Khanna, the president of the American Immigrant Investor Alliance, a group that lobbies on behalf of EB-5 investors. “As India and China woke up, my phone blew up.”
“Everybody I’m hearing from is like ‘rush’ — get in as much as you can, be000cause who knows how long” the program will last in its current form, Gordon said, “On both the sponsor side and on the immigrant side.”
Developers who qualify for the program win big savings. For example: One project Gordon is working on, a $100 million 19-story apartment building, qualifies for about $35 million of EB-5 funding. Traditional mezzanine debt financing for such a project might come with an interest rate of 10 or 12 percent, Gordon said, but the developer will pay 5 to 7 percent for EB-5 funding. “You’re really cutting, you know, 30 to 50 percent of your cost of capital, on a rather significant portion of your capital,” he added.
On top of saving money, developers say the program has been crucial during periods like the financial crisis when other funding sources become prohibitively expensive or scarce.
Unsurprisingly, the real estate industry has been one of the EB-5 program’s most ardent defenders. The National Association of Realators and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied against a bill introduced in 2017 that would have terminated the program.
Such programs aren’t unusual. Seventy countries exchange permanent residency or citizenship for investments or donations, according to Kristin Surak, an associate professor at the London School of Economics who studies so-called golden visa and passport programs worldwide. In some countries, including Malta and Cyprus, the programs represent a significant part of the economy.
Proponents point to the jobs created. Critics say the EB-5 program falls short of its goal to stimulate investment in rural and distressed urban areas. Previous iterations allowed developers to gerrymander maps so that even densely populated and highly employed districts like Hudson Yards qualified for preferable terms. A 2022 law ended that practice and added new incentives to build in rural areas.
Would selling visas work better? Lutnick said on Wednesday that EB-5 projects “were often suspect, they didn’t really work out, there wasn’t any oversight of it.” It’s true that there have been horror stories: Two investors who raised $350 million from foreign investors for a massive development in Vermont, for example, were accused in 2016 of perpetrating the biggest fraud in the state’s history.
But according to a report from the Government Accountability Office that looked at pending petitions in 2021, less than 1 percent were found to be fraudulent or posed national security risks (about 3 percent were investigated). Additional safeguards were added in the 2022 law.
The gold card may have a different problem: A dearth of applicants. Participants in the EB-5 program expect to get their $1 million investment back at some point, whereas Trump’s plan requires a $5 million donation that isn’t returned.
The EB-5 program drew about 7,000 investments between April 1, 2022 to July 31, 2024, according to data compiled by the American Immigrant Investor Alliance. Even if the gold card comes with a tax benefit, why would a substantially larger group of foreigners — Trump said “maybe a million” — be willing to pay the much higher cost?
Many in the industry see Trump’s plan as unworkable. Trump would need congressional approval both to abolish a visa program that was created by law and to allocate visas for a new one. “This is unpredictable,” Khanna said. “No one truly knows where this is going.”
More than Trump’s recent announcement, which lacked specifics, many of the big players in the ecosystem — including the companies that put together the funds, the developers and the lawyers — are focused on what will happen in 2027, when the EB-5 program expires and needs to be renewed by Congress.
They’re betting on compromise. The players in such investments are hoping the gold card becomes an addition rather than a replacement.
The idea may already be breaking through: By Wednesday, Lutnick had changed how he described the gold card plan, saying it would “modify” the EB-5 program, but it was unclear what specifically would change.
— Sarah Kessler
In Case You Missed It
President Trump’s meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine turned into an explosive shouting match on live television, a moment unlike anything we’ve ever seen at the White House. At an Oval Office appearance Friday the Ukrainian president met with Trump to sign a mineral rights deal, when Trump accused Zelensky of being ungrateful and “gambling with World War III.” Zelensky had questioned whether Trump would be able to get President Putin of Russia to honor a peace agreement without security guarantees, saying the Russian leader had broken cease-fire accords in the past. Vice President Vance, sitting on a nearby couch, chastised Zelensky for not showing more appreciation for Trump’s efforts. The U.S. president then issued an ultimatum: “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out.” The fiery exchange (here’s the video) revealed Trump’s nakedly combative approach to dealmaking. Zelensky left without signing the mineral agreement. Elon Musk, whose Starlink satellite internet service has been vital to Ukraine’s military defenses, seemed to praise Trump on X after the exchange.
Shari Redstone urged her board to find a resolution with President Trump. Redstone, who is trying to sell Paramount, her family business, to David Ellison’s Skydance, directed her board to find a way to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the company’s CBS News division, DealBook was first to report. The president sued the company last year for $20 billion, accusing the network of deceptively editing an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to cast her in a more favorable light. Even though legal experts say Trump has a weak case, some Paramount executives feel a settlement would smooth the way with the Trump administration toward greenlighting the company’s Skydance merger.
Apple’s Tim Cook gave a lesson in the art of dealmaking with President Trump. The Apple leader drew praise from Trump for his commitment to invest $500 billion in the United States and create 20,000 more jobs over the next four years. The stakes are high for Apple because its iPhones are primarily made in China, which faces an additional 10 percent tariff on exports. But Cook appeared to take a page out of his playbook from Trump’s first term, when he pledged more U.S. investment and won tariff exemptions. By the way, that $500 billion commitment was probably already earmarked. Expect similarly framed corporate announcements to follow.
The S.E.C. said memecoins aren’t like stocks and bonds. That means you and I can trade them at our own risk and the novelty crypto tokens — including those tied to President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump — won’t be subject to regulatory oversight. Trump, whose presidential campaign was backed by top crypto executives, has promised less regulation for the industry. Even so, the price of Bitcoin has plunged in recent days, stoking concern about crypto volatility.
Weighing a return to Russia
President Trump and President Putin of Russia marked the third anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine this week with a similar message: Russia will soon be open for business. Never mind that Russia and the United States remain far apart on the fundamental terms of a peace negotiation, or that Russia is under heavy sanctions by Western countries, or that uncertainty over the region’s future has only grown after yesterday’s Oval Office blow-up.
DealBook spoke with Charles Hecker, a former reporter for The Moscow Times and a geopolitical risk consultant who for decades advised Western companies on expanding their business in Russia, about the prospect of business leaders taking Trump and Putin up on the pitch. (A reminder: most, but hardly all, Western companies left Russia shortly after war in Ukraine broke out.)
Hecker is the author of the book “Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia,” which is set for publication in the United States next week. This interview has been edited for brevity.
The assumption is that Western, and especially American companies, will not return to Russia any time soon. How do you see it playing out?
Inside a number of companies, conversations are already taking place about whether and how to go back to Russia. And those conversations probably preceded this flurry of diplomatic activity between Moscow and Washington. There are also companies that have decided already, resolutely, that they are not going back. What this speaks to is risk appetite. There are clearly companies that have cast iron stomachs and bottomless appetites for risk. Those are the companies that are probably considering going back to Russia most actively.
Who might they be?
These are companies in the energy sector, and more broadly, in the natural resources sector. These are companies that are thoroughly accustomed to doing business in very-high-risk jurisdictions.
For companies with a higher appetite for risk, what kind of negotiated resolutions between the West and Russia would they view as a kind of all-clear?
One of the red lines is sanctions. If part of the resolution of the war on Ukraine is sanctions relief, then there will be companies that see that, essentially, as a signal to go back.
What kind of Russia is waiting for them?
Over the past three years there have been some changes that have taken place that will be very, very difficult to reverse. We all know of the famous headline-grabbing nationalizations and reallocations that took place, like Danone and Carlsberg — really high profile expropriations. There is a new business elite in Russia that is one level below the individuals who have been sanctioned who serve largely at the pleasure of the Kremlin. This new business elite has possession of a great number of very shiny new toys that were previously Western companies. It’s a valid question to ask about whether these new owners are going to want to give their shiny new toys back. And if they do, whether under political pressure or otherwise, what would the cost be?
Thanks for reading! We’ll see you Monday.
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