The Trump administration barred Microsoft Thursday from participating in a program that allows foreign workers in the US on a H-1B visa to apply for a green card, with Vice President JD Vance accusing the tech giant of fraud.
“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” Vance told reporters in the latest announcement from his federal fraud task force.
Critics of the H-1B program — which permits workers with special skills legal employment in the US — say it is overused, allows cheaper foreign workers to replace American employees, and is rife with abuse.
Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling added that some of the largest IT firms in the world — including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini, as well as Adobe — would also be suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program.
“We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies,” the newly confirmed secretary said. “Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers.”
The move is one of a series of actions meant to protect American white-collar workers, Sonderling said.
“It begins with universities and companies that have turned into visa mills, promoting foreign workers that have lied about their qualifications to take jobs from our beloved American workers,” he claimed.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CEO Satya Nadella was due to join President Trump later Thursday to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
It’s unclear why the Trump administration is targeting the Redmond, Wash., based company, but Vance accused Microsoft of being the most frequent hirer of foreign workers over American applicants.
The VP claimed the company laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.
“Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants,” said Vance, pointing out that foreign workers are subject to deportation if they lose their job.
However, Lisa Monaco, a former deputy attorney general under Joe Biden and Microsoft’s current president of global affairs, is a longtime Trump target, having overseen the federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents from his first term.
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“Last Critical Piece”: SpaceX Secures Spectrum Deal To Challenge Big Telecom
AT&T tumbled 7.3% in after-hours trading, while T-Mobile US and Verizon Communications each dropped 6.6% as of 5 p.m. New York time. SpaceX rose 1.5%
Major telecom stocks puked after hours after Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced it would acquire a portfolio of up to 14 MHz of paired low-band spectrum in the 800 MHz band, positioning Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.
Musk wrote on X that the low-band spectrum represents “the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle needed for SpaceX to provide complete phone coverage in America.”
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EU and Beijing heading for trade war as Brussels slams ‘unsustainable’ $1billion-a-day deficit – but China warns: ‘Trade war? Let them try
The EU and China are edging closer to a trade war, with the bloc’s commerce chief warning that its trade deficit with China is ‘unsustainable’ as he began two days of talks in Beijing aimed at averting an escalating confrontation.
Beijing, meanwhile, hit back by warning that Europe lacks the capacity to wage a trade war, issuing a blunt challenge: ‘Let them try.’
Writing on X on Thursday, European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic said: ‘Day one in China, with one goal: begin rebalancing our… unsustainable trade deficit.’
‘I started by hearing directly from EU businesses here. The message around the table was clear: the need to improve access to the Chinese market, while boosting our economic security,’ he added.
Last year, every day, China exported to the EU around a billion euros more in goods and services than went the other way, according to European figures.
Many in Europe blame this on unfair trade practices by Beijing, including state subsidies and price dumping, undercutting European rivals in industries from cars to chemicals.
The Asian giant could throttle supplies of items such as rare earth minerals that are vital for the continent’s industrial sector – or throw up barriers to European exports to China.
The two days of discussions by Mr Sefcovic in Beijing come as France and Germany, the bloc’s two biggest powers, threaten to up the ante.
In a letter earlier this week, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for a ‘credible instrument’ to respond quickly to any escalation by Beijing.
The proposed weapon – to be discussed at an EU leaders’ summit next week – would give the European Commission the power to respond to a trade aggression within days.
Among other actions, it proposed making it easier for the European Commission to use the bloc’s so-called ‘trade bazooka’, the Anti-Coercion Instrument.
This is a never-used-before raft of measures for blocking or restricting trade and investment from countries found to be putting undue pressure on EU member nations or corporations.
Yet not all EU nations agree on such tough measures. Spain, the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, has been less adversarial toward China in recent years.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has visited Beijing four times in three years. Far-Right and Left-wing lawmakers from Ireland to Bulgaria formed an unusual coalition on Wednesday to vote against resolution calling for tougher China policies.
China immediately warned Paris and Berlin on Tuesday against ‘protectionist’ measures.
‘They should avoid going down the wrong path in the wrong way, only to ultimately suffer the consequences themselves,’ the commerce ministry said in a statement.
And an editorial in China’s state run Global Times newspaper read: ‘The EU does not have the capacity to wage a trade war against China. If it is truly determined to do so, then let it try.’
China’s foreign ministry said Thursday that Beijing hopes that it can work with Brussels ‘in the same direction and address each other’s concerns through dialogue and consultation’.
‘As a principle, China has always believed that adhering to openness and cooperation and resolving economic and trade differences through equal dialogue and consultation is in the common interests of both China and the EU,’ spokesman Mao Ning told a regular briefing.
The stakes are also high for President Xi Jinping, however, with China heavily reliant on exports in order to compensate for its stuttering domestic economy.
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