Trump's gold card was supposed to raise $1 trillion, so far it only has 1 approval

By TheStreet Roundtable

8 days ago

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The Trump administration's marquee immigration product, a gold-plated visa that lets wealthy foreigners buy their way into the United States for a minimum of $1 million — has been approved for exactly one person.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed the number at a congressional committee hearing on Thursday, roughly four months after the program officially launched in December. He did not name the individual or disclose what country they came from.

"They've just set it up, and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly," Lutnick said, appearing unbothered by the pace. He added that "hundreds" of applications are currently in the queue and being reviewed.

The single approval is difficult to square with what the administration said when the card first went live. Back in December, Lutnick stood beside President Trump and claimed the government had sold $1.3 billion worth of gold cards within days of launch. Trump held the card up for cameras and called it "essentially the green card on steroids." Lutnick did not address the discrepancy when pressed by a congresswoman at Thursday's hearing.

Among the known applicants is Jeffrey Chao, the Chinese-born founder of router maker TP-Link Systems, who applied for the card in March while the Commerce Department was separately investigating his company's ties to China. Chao has since opened a new headquarters in Irvine and said he would invest $700 million in U.S. manufacturing. It is unclear whether the single approval belongs to him.

What the Gold Card actually costs

The program was authorized by Executive Order 14351, signed by Trump on September 19, 2025, which directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce to build the intake process within 90 days. By mid-December, USCIS had released Form I-140G and Commerce had begun accepting applications.

The program's official website features Trump's face alongside a bald eagle and the Statue of Liberty, with the tagline "Unlock life in America." Beyond the branding, the structure works like this.

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An individual applicant pays a nonrefundable $15,000 processing fee just to enter the queue. If approved, they contribute a $1 million "unrestricted gift" to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Corporations can sponsor a foreign-born employee for $2 million, with a 1% annual maintenance fee attached. The card qualifies holders for EB-1 and EB-2 immigrant visa categories, opening a path to permanent residency and eventually citizenship.

There is also a proposed premium tier. The Trump Platinum Card, priced at $5 million, would allow holders to spend up to 270 days per year in the United States without being taxed on non-U.S. income. That tier has not yet launched.

What it replaced and what it removed

The Gold Card was designed to replace the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, a decades-old visa category that Congress created in 1990 to stimulate the economy through foreign capital and job creation.

Under EB-5, investors had to put between $800,000 and $1,050,000 into a U.S. commercial enterprise and prove that investment created or preserved at least 10 full-time American jobs. The process was slow and heavily regulated, but it came with a built-in economic rationale — foreign money had to produce domestic employment.

The Gold Card stripped that requirement out entirely. There is no job creation mandate. The contribution goes directly to the Department of Commerce, and when asked at Thursday's hearing how the proceeds would be spent, Lutnick offered only that it would be "determined by the administration" and used "for the betterment of the United States of America."

A year ago, Lutnick told a cabinet meeting that the Gold Card would raise $1 trillion in revenue and help balance the federal budget. The publicly held national debt currently sits at $31.3 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office projects the fiscal year 2026 deficit at roughly $1.9 trillion.

The golden visa model is not new

Selling residency to wealthy foreigners is a well-established practice globally. The United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada, and Italy all offer some version of a golden visa program, typically requiring investment in local real estate or government bonds.

What makes the Trump Gold Card unusual is the directness of the transaction. Most golden visa programs require the applicant to invest in something that theoretically benefits the local economy. The Gold Card is closer to a flat fee for entry, with no strings attached beyond vetting.

Crypto industry leaders have pushed for the Gold Card to accept Bitcoin, with figures like Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey arguing that payments should flow directly into the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve rather than the Commerce Department. The administration has not acted on that suggestion, but the idea reflects how quickly the line between immigration policy and digital assets is blurring.

Countries are already doing it differently

While Washington is selling access for dollars, a small Himalayan kingdom has built an entirely different model — one that runs on blockchain.

In February, Bhutan's Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority launched the world's first blockchain-powered digital nomad visa. Applicants deposit a refundable $10,000 equivalent in TER tokens — a sovereign gold-backed digital asset issued on the Solana network — along with a $2,800 annual program fee.

Each TER token represents fractional ownership of 0.01 grams of 999.9 purity physical gold stored in secure vaults. The token launched in December 2025 through a partnership with DK Bank, Bhutan's first digital bank, and tokenization partner Matrixdock. The visa itself grants 12 months of residency, renewable up to 24 months.

Bhutan is not new to digital assets. The country has been mining Bitcoin with surplus hydroelectric power since at least 2019 and holds an estimated 11,000 BTC. It has also partnered with Binance to accept crypto payments for tourism. In December 2025, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck pledged up to 10,000 BTC to fund the Gelephu Mindfulness City's long-term development.

Bhutan is not alone. El Salvador launched its Freedom Visa in late 2023 in partnership with Tether, offering citizenship for a $1 million investment in Bitcoin or USDT — no fiat required. Portugal's golden visa program now allows crypto-converted fiat for qualifying fund investments. Vanuatu, Dominica, and Saint Lucia have followed with their own crypto-friendly residency tracks.

No other country, however, ties residency directly to a sovereign digital asset the way Bhutan does. It is a fundamentally different bet than Washington's — one that treats blockchain infrastructure, not a wire transfer to the Commerce Department, as the basis for immigration policy.