Trump talks a big game about keeping jobs in America, and has consistently discussed specific American companies that have moved jobs overseas. In the past week he has mentioned Carrier and Ford several times, and in his press conference yesterday he added Pfizer to that list. His argument is that companies once used to move from expensive parts of the countries, New Jersey say, to less expensive parts of the country like Florida. Now these same companies are moving those jobs overseas. “Now they’re leaving from places they used to move to into other parts of the world. And we can’t let that happen….Millions and millions of jobs,” as stated at the 7:30 mark of the clip below:

This speech last night was given at the posh Mar-A-Lago club in Palm Beach, FL. It seems a strange choice, as Donald Trump has been receiving a lot of criticism lately about the hiring of foreign guest workers at this very club.

According to the New York Times last week, almost 300 Americans applied for jobs there, but only 17 received positions. Most of the positions were filled by “foreign guest workers” from Romania and elsewhere. Trump has applied for 500 foreign visas for employees of this club, according to the US Department of Labor, while the 300 Americans applying for those jobs had to continue looking for work.

The guest worker visas are legal, for the most part. The Department of Labor however reserves this type of visa for when an employer can not fill those positions with American workers. Trump’s company attested to this when they filled out the applications for the visas.

Trump has stated that “part of the reason you can’t get, you know, American people, they want full-time jobs. This is a four-month, five-month job. They want long-term jobs.” Of course the 300 applicants mentioned above would disagree. The real reason Trump is hiring foreign workers is that they will work for less money than Americans.

As quoted in the NYT article above, Tom Veenstra, at CareerSource, a job placement company in Palm Beach stated “We have hundreds of qualified applicants for jobs like those.”

The hubris needed is mind numbing. To have a press conference where American jobs are the first issue talked about in a club where American workers were passed over for cheaper foreign labor is the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

Sources:
Photo: http://www.maralagoclub.com/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=296076&ssid=177998&vnf=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/donald-trump-taps-foreign-work-force-for-his-florida-club.html?_r=0
http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/article_f30becd1-95f4-5d6c-a39d-0531c32573f0.html