Dem Volke Dienen: The Third World and the Export of Workforce
Hereby we publish a unofficial translation of an article published by Dem Volke Dienen.
The negative news published about Donald Trump and his second term of office is the most popular subject in the European press. There is no day in which you can’t read how the supposedly “erratic” president wants to push the world into chaos.
From time to time, the pen-pushers of the press monopoly publish interesting things in this context. Attacking the customs and tax policy, the BBC recently published an interesting article. In a so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” there lies a clause that could appropriate billion-dollar amounts of money that is being transferred into the country. The bill includes a tax of 3.5 percent on money transfers of foreign employees who send money to the interior, including holders of green cards and employees with temporary visas.
India is the worldwide largest receiver of such transfers; other important countries are Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Most of them are oppressed countries of the third world.
In the year 2023, Indians who worked abroad sent more than 100 billion euros back to their homeland. This is more than half of India’s merchandise trade gap and exceeds direct foreign investments, which means the export of capital to India. At least this is what the report of the Reserve Bank of India says. The biggest amount comes from the USA.
Nevertheless, the Indian Central Bank assumes that the transfers will rise to 140 billion euros by 2029. The transfers resulting from the export of workforce since the beginning of the new century have constantly accounted for 3% of the GDP.
The volume of the export of workforce from India grew from 6.6 billion in the year 1990 to 18.5 billion in the year 2024. The population in the working-age in India consists of more or less 1.15 billion people.
This means that about 2.5 percent of the population produces 3% of the GDP, compared to the average, they receive twice as much for their workforce (excluding the own costs of reproduction).
The role of the export of workforce for the oppressed countries is evident from the calculations that the lowering of transfers from 15 to 10 percent costs India 10 to 15 billion every year. But this does not only have consequences for the affected, who can’t pay their debts or are not able to buy their medicine, but also the shortage of dollars would put the Indian currency under pressure.
This situation burdens Indian households immensely; accordingly, it would decrease consumption as well as investments (finance- and fixed assets, as well as real estate, gold, and small and smallest enterprises) because the export of workforce is one of the most important and reliable currency resources of India, according to a report from the Center for WTO Studies in Delhi.
A study from the Center for Global Development shows that the planned taxes will also affect the official transfers in other oppressed countries, reducing them drastically. Mexico would be affected most, with 2.6 billion dollars yearly. Next to India, the biggest losers are China, Vietnam, and Latin American countries such as Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.
An important detail in this question is that the tax affects all non-citizens, even the staff of the embassies and the UN and World Bank. But! Who pays taxes can apply for tax credit. The transfer tax is only affecting the working migrants who don’t pay taxes, and these are primarily illegal migrants.
But this won’t decrease or stop migration because the income from a mini job in the USA brings about 21,000 euros yearly. In Germany, you get about 26,000 euros before tax. In Mexico, the average income lies around 11,000; in Brazil, 8,500; in Ecuador, 6,000; in the Philippines, 4,000; and in India, 2,400 euros.
Remarkable is how the BBC article concludes on this topic. The author, Soutik Biswas, summarizes that the main motivation for migration – trying to overcome oceans, rivers, and mountains and risking one’s life – is to send money back home to support one’s family financially.
Not only for the oppressed countries but also for the imperialist countries is it very important that the migration of workers is sustained and developed. Solely in October of last year, the German social democracy, through its former minister of labor, Hubertus Heil, announced the so-called “Indian professionals strategy” Since then, the German Federal Agency of Labor has been present at job fairs, and this is only one of 30 measures. The FRG has similar deals for the migration of workforce to Germany, such as with Turkey, Vietnam, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Egypt, Colombia, Morocco, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Kenya, and Nigeria.
The Federal Republic needs about 300,000 to 400,000 immigrant workers yearly to sustain the level of productivity. The fact that the reproduction of the workforce in Germany is simply too expensive leads them to exploit the oppressed countries by “stealing” their smartest heads and strongest hands.
