Donald Trump has promised to make America great again, but he’s already running into issues. Despite running on a platform of bringing jobs back, his corporation is already looking to hire foreign workers for one of Trump’s properties.
On December 2, the Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia requested six H2 visas to hire foreign staff. The vineyard wants full-time workers between January and June to prune grapes for $10.72 an hour. It’s unclear why the Trump corporation can’t hire American workers for the job.
The visa applications were submitted to the Department of Labor, an organization that Trump now heads. He appoints the agency leader and can just as easily fire that person. Several leading ethics lawyers have called this situation a conflict of interest and called for the President-Elect to set up a blind trust or fully divest from his property.
In a bizarre twist, Trump’s potentially false claims about the winery may actually help him. He stated he owns the winery outright with no debt or mortgage during a campaign stop. According to the Winery’s website, it’s owned by Trump son Eric.
Candidate Trump was routinely criticized for his outsourced materials and jobs. Secretary Clinton pointed out that several of his buildings have been constructed from Chinese-made steel, and many others asked why his company as well as daughter Ivanka’s businesses sold Made-in-China clothing. Trump insisted that he was simply a smart businessman and the U.S. government should do a better job regulating him and other business owners. Now that Trump is at the forefront of the federal government, Americans will have to wait and see if he’ll live up to his campaign promises. Unfortunately, there’s no legal requirement for Trump to do so.