President Trump’s Latest Executive Order Aims To Make Companies ‘Hire American’

Trump is putting Americans first, as any President of the United States should do. That this is even controversial is an indication of how badly things have degenerated under the political and media hegemony of the left.

“Donald Trump’s Latest Executive Order Aims To Make Companies ‘Hire American,’” by Kaitlan Collins, Daily Caller, April 17, 2017:

Donald Trump will sign an executive order in hopes of favoring American workers by reforming the H-1B visa program and minimizing exceptions to the Buy American Act of 1933, which requires the federal government to favor U.S.-made products when funding projects.

The president is scheduled to sign the two-part order — Buy American and Hire American — after delivering remarks at a tool manufacturing company in Wisconsin Tuesday.

The first part of the executive order — Hire American — seeks to enforce the H-1B visa program so it “serves the national interest” by awarding visas to the most-skilled and highest-paid applicants without bypassing American workers who are qualified for those jobs.

Though Trump vowed to end the H-1B visa program as a candidate, a senior administration official said the order instructs the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice and State Department to propose reforms to the program to prevent fraud and abuse in the immigration system.

“For too long, rather than operating as designed and allowing only the best and brightest to come in and fill key positions, the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program has been administered in a way that harms American workers—specifically, it has led to a flood of relatively low-wage, low-skill workers in the tech sector,” the official said.

“Our goal is to ensure that U.S. workers who are just as qualified, willing and deserving to work in these fields are not ignored or otherwise unfairly disadvantaged in the H-1B process.”

“We are saying to these agencies, ‘Tell us everything you can do.’”

The official said the review could result in proposed legislation or administrative changes, like increasing applications fees for H-1B visas.

The second part of the order — Buy American — instructs the same agencies listed above to favor American-made goods and services when using taxpayer dollars on federally-funded projects, while minimizing waivers and exceptions to the Buy American law.

Meant to root out “every single Buy American loophole,” it instructs the agencies to conduct a “top-to-bottom” performance review of how they grant waivers and exceptions. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross will then review those findings and submit a report to the president within 220 days.

“Buy American is the Trump Administration’s highest priority when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars,” a senior official said. “Agencies have their clear marching orders, and they will be held strictly accountable for any failure to fulfill the Buy American mission. This order directs every agency to scrupulously monitor, enforce, and comply with Buy American laws.”…