The Golden Sellout - Welcome to Trump’s Duty-Free of Democracy

Once upon a time there was a country that prided itself on being the cradle of freedom. At some point it decided that the solution to all problems did not lie in education, social justice, or a functioning health care system - but in a plastic card, gilded, with Donald Trump’s face on it. Ladies and Gentlemen: The Trump Gold Card. For only one million dollars - a real bargain in the land of unpaid hospital bills - you can suddenly no longer be considered “illegal” in the United States. Not because you have paid taxes for years or worked a lifetime, but because you booked the exclusive Trump tariff. “Unlock life in America” is the slogan. As if it had taken a PIN code to enter the country until now - and Donald J. Trump personally held it.

Of course, there is also an upgrade: the Trump Platinum Card. For five million dollars you may stay up to 270 days a year in the country - tax free, of course. Tax exemption, the highest good Trump ever understood. No more visas, no annoying consulate - just the golden flourish of his signature, which looks like a seismographic earthquake in Manhattan.

But that is just the beginning. The Corporate Gold Card, for two million per employee, allows corporations to import their workforce in bundles. With a small annual fee and a “transfer fee,” so that the whole thing feels like Netflix: if you do not like your employee anymore, you can simply swap them for a new one - provided the contribution remains in the system. This is what modern personnel management looks like: hire & fire on the gold edge. And if anyone thinks this is final - do not worry. The Trump Gold Card can also be “revoked.” National security and “other risks” are enough. Who knows, maybe tomorrow you will be considered a risk if you buy too few red caps or secretly watch CNN.

Legally, the card supposedly makes you “EB-1 or EB-2” - categories once reserved for highly qualified people. Today apparently a fat check is enough. Formerly Nobel Prize winners, now oligarch sons. This is not immigration, this is Sotheby’s for visas. The application process? Three steps. First pay, then background check, then - surprise! - pay again. “Careful Consideration” is the official wording, unofficially: anyone whose account has eight zeros automatically has a clean record. Moral questions? Not applicable. Human rights? They only appear when the credit card is declined.

But the best part: the whole program sells itself as a patriotic rescue mission. More than 100 billion dollars are supposed to flow - for tax cuts, “Pro Growth Projects” (meaning golf courses with helipads) and for debt reduction. Of all people, Trump wants to reduce debt with gold cards. The irony is as thick as the border of the card itself. The USA in 2025 is no longer the land of unlimited opportunities, but the land of unlimited membership fees. Democracy becomes a paywall, freedom a subscription model, immigration a special edition in the duty-free shop. “Exclusive Privileges” is written under the card with Trump’s face. Exclusive here is only one thing: the price.

And so the golden likeness of the 45th and 47th President looks at us, stern, unmoved, like a mixture of Caesar and the Monopoly mascot. In the background, the Statue of Liberty, whose meaning is now: Give me your rich, your millionaires, your tax exiles. And if they do not pay enough, lock them out again immediately. The Trump immigration system is not a reform. It is a sellout. A black market in a gold frame. A democracy that auctions itself off to the highest bidder. Welcome to the duty-free of freedom.