How Trump's H-1B fee helps big tech's AI plan

When I look at Trump's recent $100,000 H-1B visa fee announcement, I see something that most people are missing entirely. This isn’t about protecting American workers or being anti-India but it’s only about tech billionaires getting exactly what they wanted all along.

- SUDHANSHU KUMAR

As I watch this development unfold, I realize we're witnessing one of the most calculated labour market restructuring in modern history, and it’s brilliant in its cynicism. In techno-geopolitics it is always fascinating to see how quickly the narrative changes around contemporary events. On September 4, 2025, Trump hosted what was described as “one of the wealthiest gatherings in the history of the White House” - a high-profile dinner with 33 Silicon Valley leaders in the newly-renovated Rose Garden. The event included 13 billionaires and was specifically focused on artificial intelligence investments and securing American AI dominance. From a critical lens these events aren't coincidences, but in actual they’re investments with very specific returns in mind.

Before going deep into the issue of this neo-colonial extraction of labour, it is important to understand what has really changed. The fact is that AI has made the traditional Indian IT workforce expendable. This can be substantiated further when we look at the numbers, because they tell a brutal story. For example, over 83,000 tech workers lost their jobs in 2025 alone, with companies like Salesforce explicitly stating they “no longer need to actively backfill support engineer roles” because their AI platform Agentforce now handles customer support queries. In a similar instance, TCS cutting 12,000 jobs isn’t just downsizing but it’s the beginning of what experts predict will be 500,000 job eliminations in the next 2-3 years.