There has been a backlash against Trump’s executive order against seven predominantly Muslim countries, but the president says the system is working [Xinhua]
There are fears on both sides of the Pacific that the executive order signed by President Donald Trump to ban visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries will adversely affect America’s tech industry.
Neflix chief Reed Hastings, for example, has said that “Trump’s actions are hurting Netflix employees around the world, and are so un-American it pains us all”.
America’s Silicon Valley and other tech super companies have for decades recruited talent from India, China, Pakistan, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many of those skilled workers who came in on specialized H1-B visas were from the Muslim countries emphasized in the executive order.
Google says it has 178 employees from the seven banned countries.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick also took to Facebook to voice his moral objections to the executive order.
Some US officials have also criticized the executive order.
“I never thought I’d see the day when refugees, who have fled war-torn countries in search of a better life, would be turned away at our doorstep,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement supporting the demonstrators and quoted by NPR. “This is not who we are, and not who we should be.”
There are fears that the “Muslim ban” is another step to reversing Washington’s role in globalization and is tantamount to a retreat from internationalism.
“Americans have voted for building a wall to protect what they have, against the dream of global dominance. This surely marks the end of the uni-polar world as we know it,” journalist Anmol Saxena says.
There was also sharp criticism of the policy from Canada, the UK, Germany and France – traditional US allies, but strong support from right-wing parties in Europe.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
Source