Ever since Donald Trump became the President of the United States, his every move has been devastating some country, some community or some corporate sector. Another bill he recently signed, the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’, has a provision that will hit the Indian diaspora the hardest. In this way, America will take billions of dollars out of the pockets of Indian diaspora. In fact, America is going to impose a 3.5 percent tax on the money sent to their countries by all foreign workers, including green card holders and temporary visa workers like H-1B visas.
The United States is home to the largest number of Indian diaspora after Mexico. These Indians not only earn more than other communities in the United States, but also send much more money to their parents and family members living in India than other immigrants. Therefore, the biggest victims of Trump’s tax will be Indians, although Mexico, China, Philippines, France, Pakistan and Bangladesh have also been placed in the same category. If we talk about RBI data, then in the year 2023, Indians living in the US sent about 119 billion dollars to their families in India. Although this amount is sent by immigrants to their families, this foreign currency deposited with the Reserve Bank of India forms a major part of India’s ‘foreign reserves’ and this further strengthens the country’s economy. The amount of money sent by Indians living in the US, the Indian government pays at least 2-3 months of import bills with it. Therefore, the money sent by Indian immigrants from the US is very important for our country.
Indian immigrants living in the US keep sending money for their parents for medicines, education of relatives, buying a house, repaying loans, weddings and many other occasions of happiness. Now Trump has his eye on the money of the Indian diaspora and he wants to snatch a large part of it through taxes. If nothing is done till the last efforts, then Indians will have to pay this tax, which can prove to be a big obstacle to the money coming to India from abroad. It is worth mentioning that the largest amount of money is sent to India from abroad by Indian diaspora, this is called ‘remittance’. At present, there are about two and a half crore Indians living all over the world, who have gone abroad to earn money on a large scale and the country receives foreign currency from these Indian citizens. For the last 17-18 years, India has been at the top of the list of countries receiving money from abroad. At the beginning of this century, the share of Indians alone in the total money sent to their homes by the diaspora of the whole world was 11 percent, which has now increased to 15 percent. The largest number of Indians in the world is the Indian diaspora and the number of Indians going abroad is constantly increasing. Indians dominate the service sector around the world, especially in the technology sector. Indians constitute about 13 percent of the world’s service sector, this number is expected to increase to 17-18 percent by 2030. According to an estimate, by the year 2029-30, it is expected that 160 to 170 billion dollars will be sent to India by the Indian diaspora.
Now the Indian economy has become the fourth largest economy in the world, of which 3 percent is the money sent by these diasporas. If we look at the international level, the population of Indian diaspora in the US has been increasing continuously since the 90s and all the US presidents have been praising the Indians working in the technology sector of the US, especially in the field of computers. From George Bush Jr. to Obama, they have been continuously motivating Indians to contribute more to their economy. But Trump is the first such president who takes donations from Indians on a large scale and also talks about them being hardworking and intelligent, but he does not like Indians who earn in America. Trump feels that Indians are filling their country (India) by earning here (in America). If Indian expatriates send 100 billion dollars to their country from America, then they also increase the wealth of America by 1000 billion dollars.
But Trump does not see this, he only sees the salary of Indians and he is keeping a crooked eye on their earnings. Trump is not grateful for the fact that the economy of America is getting stronger due to the hard work of Indians. In fact, not only Indians but also other immigrants of the world send the most money to their countries from America. In 2020-21, 23.4 percent of the money sent from the US by migrants has increased to 28 percent in 2023-24. As far as Indians are concerned, Trump is annoyed with them because 78 percent of the Indian diaspora work in science, management, business and high-income sectors. The continuously increasing taxes for a long time are already a matter of global concern, as they directly affect the families of workers. But now countries like the US want to grab a large part of the earnings of workers by creating tax loopholes.
Among the states in India where the most money comes from abroad, Maharashtra is at the first place, Kerala is at the second place and Tamil Nadu is at the third place. If the above law is strictly implemented, it will also have a negative impact on the economy of these states, because the money that comes to the families of immigrants living here, when finally spent, goes here and this makes the economy of these states prosperous.If we look at it this way, Trump is not only trying to fill his own coffers by cracking down on immigrants, but is also trying to weaken India’s economy.
