‘They’ll be net losers’: Jaishankar’s message to anti-immigrant leaders in US, Europe

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday warned anti-immigrant leaders in the West that their countries would be “net losers” if they continued to erect too many barriers to the flow of talent.

Speaking at the India’s World Annual Conclave 2025, Jaishankar said that the challenges cited by these leaders as justification for their anti-immigrant policies have little to do with cross-border movement of talent. Instead, he said, they stem from policy choices they made over the decades.

“If there are concerns, let us say, in the United States or in Europe, it is because they very consciously and deliberately, over the last two decades, allowed their businesses to relocate. It was their choice and strategy. They have to find ways of fixing it, and many of them are,” said Jaishankar, according to CNN-News18.

Jaishankar further said, “The part which concerns us is to convince them that mobility, the use of talent across boundaries, is to our mutual benefit. That they would be net losers if they actually erected too many roadblocks to the flow of talent.”

Jaishankar’s remarks come at a time when several Western leaders are pursuing anti-immigrant policies and blaming migrants for “stealing” jobs and denying employment to natives. Such rhetoric has gained traction in the United States where President Donald Trump’s far-right supporters have repeatedly called for a crackdown on, or even abolition of, the H-1B visa programme.

Similar sentiments have surfaced in the United Kingdom and across Europe, including in Germany, where the far-right AfD party has been on the rise. Jaishankar warned that such movements would ultimately backfire.

“As we move into an era of advanced manufacturing, we will need more talent, not less, and talent cannot be developed organically at a high rate. There is a certain structural impediment out there. In their own societies, you can see the tension,” said Jaishankar.