President Donald Trump has unveiled plans for selling a “gold card” visa for $5m (£3.9m) that will offer wealthy buyers permanent residency in the US and a path to citizenship.

At the first cabinet meeting of his current term, Trump told reporters that the visas would function similarly to green cards, which allow immigrants of varying incomes to live and work permanently in the US, but would go to “high-level people”.

The people that can pay $5m, they’re going to create jobs, Trump said. It’s going to sell like crazy. It’s a bargain.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, also at the meeting, said the gold visas would replace the current visa programme for foreign investors, but offered few details.

Dozens of countries around the world offer some sort of citizenship by investment programme, including several in Europe, like Portugal, which gives “golden visas”, or permanent residency for foreigners who invest €500,000 ($524,000) into a qualifying fund.

Trump said companies would use the golden visa programme to hire non-citizens to work for them in the US.

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National & International PolicyUnited States