President Donald Trump on Thursday called on Congress to pass legislation to allow US companies to continue employing American workers in foreign countries for up to 10 years.
The Trump administration is in talks with the Senate and House of Representatives on legislation to extend the temporary hiring program for at least 10 years, a senior White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were not public.
A bill introduced in Congress in December would have extended the hiring of Americans to foreign countries indefinitely.
The White House has said that the legislation was aimed at helping the US economy.
The White House said in a statement that the administration “is still working on the details of a long-term extension of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for U.S. workers in more than 60 countries around the world, including Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom”.
The White Houses officials declined to say what kind of legislation might be in the pipeline.
However, the official said Trump has not yet received the text of the legislation and is still in the process of negotiating it.
The official said the administration was confident it could reach an agreement with Congress before the end of the year.
“We will see what happens,” the official added.
The extension is expected to help the economy of about 9 million Americans who are employed in US businesses in countries such as India, Germany and Japan.
The program was established by the 2001 Global Trade Act.
In addition to the temporary extension, Trump has proposed increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
He has also called for the end to a ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the reopening of the Keystone XL pipeline, which he wants to build from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
In a speech in June, Trump said he was “looking to open up new opportunities for American workers, particularly in our manufacturing sector, which is the backbone of our economy and employs over 4 million people”.
But in September, Trump told reporters that he was considering reversing the temporary temporary extension and would instead increase taxes on companies and wealthy individuals.
In his speech in July, Trump also said that he would not seek re-election next year.
He has said he would like to make America great again and that he does not want to see “another 10-year period where we’re going to lose jobs and wages”.
The Trump Administration is expected in the coming weeks to finalise the details and schedule of a deal with Congress to extend temporary temporary protections.
The extension would allow Americans to stay in the US for at most 10 years after the end, as well as a one-year grace period to work in the United States again if they choose to do so.
In the meantime, the US has been dealing with the effects of the pandemic, which has forced many Americans to work abroad, including in countries with less stringent standards of living.
More than 1.3 million people have died in the pandemics across Asia, Africa and Latin America, and about 200,000 have been hospitalized.