Donald Trump says US will sell $5m ‘gold cards’ to foreigners with ‘green card privileges-plus’

Earlier this week, Donald Trump floated the idea of selling $5 million 'gold cards' to foreign investors with 'green card privileges-plus'.

The 78-year-old Republican leader told reporters of his plans to do away with the 'EB-5' immigrant investor visa program on Tuesday (February 25), which allows foreign investors to pump money into US projects that can eventually create jobs and then apply for visas to immigrate to the States as permanent residents.

"We’re going to be selling a gold card," Trump said from the Oval Office. "You have a green card. This is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship.

"And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card."

Describing the card, Trump said it would be 'somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication'.

"It’s a road to citizenship for people, and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country," he told reporters.

President Trump has spoken of his plans to introduce 'gold cards' (Joe Raedle / Staff / Getty Images)

"A lot of people are going to want to be in this country, and they’ll be able to work and provide jobs and build companies."

Trump added that the sale of such 'gold cards' will commence in about two weeks and suggested millions of them could be sold.

When asked whether he would consider selling the cards to Russian oligarchs, the president responded: "Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick shared details about the 'vetting' process for such foreign investors, saying: "They’ll have to go through vetting, of course, to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens."

The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program was created by Congress in 1990 to 'stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors', according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website.

The gold cards would give foreign investors 'green card privileges-plus' (Getty Stock Image)

It works by granting grant green cards to immigrants who make a minimum investment of least $1,050,000, or $800,000 in economically distressed zones called targeted employment areas according to the USCIS website.

Speaking of the EB-5 programme, Lutnik added: "It was full of nonsense, make believe and fraud, and it was a way to get a green card that was low price.

"So the president said, rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 program, we're going to end the EB-5 program. We're going to replace it with the Trump gold card."