Obama and Visa fee
 

Is it likely that the Obama administration will lower the visa fee from countries like China, Brazil and Chile? If so, when might that happen, and how long would you expect it to take for those countries to reciprocate?

Not sure why you'd think Obama will lower the Visa fee. I guess you can spin a theory that because he lived briefly overseas and is more interested in "pleasing the world" he'll see the "error of our ways" and lower the US entry fee.

Personally, I wouldn't bet on it. :)

I'll second this. OP: What gives you reason to believe that this idea is even on the table?

Some people believe the current administration will reverse every thing that the previous one has done.

Can't erase the casualties in Iraq.

Guess I should have said, it will "try to reverse"...

If I recall correctly, the rule that applicants for US visas must pay for the full cost of processing--hence the relatively high fees--was enacted by the legislature (Congress), not by executive action of the President. So Obama cannot unilaterally reverse or amend this law.

Don't bet on the law changing. Except as with all things, the fees are likely to go up over time, not down.

Doubt it. I think Congress first set this one as part of a budget-balancing item (so he`ll have to ask them to reduce it) a long time ago and also as part of the user pays doctrine. Canada and the U.K. have bought into this doctrine.

Agreed.

We do a lot more checking on visas than most countries do. Of course our visas are expensive.

This was my thinking when I posted. As everyone knows, DHS has an enormous budget; visa fees are expected to cover their direct and indirect impacts upon this budget. If anything, I would guess that the $130 figure is a bit on the low side (in light of inelastic demand).

No matter how much our new president dislikes the DHS, he's not going to make it disappear overnight. Moreover, I couldn't imagine (in my wildest dreams) that he'd offload any more administrative costs onto US tax payers.

Better to travel to China now. year 2005 RMB/dollar 8.2/1 now 5.84/1 edited (6.84)/1
According to Obama their currency is manipulated, so might adjust to 4 or less/1.

So even if visa fee US to China dropped in half, total cost for a trip to China would increase due to the exchange rate change.

I'm seeing 6.84070 on xe.com.

That's right. 6.84

I hope Obama goes to visit China soon. I believe he will make a good impression with the Chinese and he will enjoy their food.

From all the analysts and pundits I've been reading, most expect the relationship between US and China to be more rocky with the new administration - from trade deficit figure, food safety, to human rights records...

I don't know why some of you here think it'd be the opposite.

Obama has family ties to China. His half brother lives there and is married to
a Chinese woman. Not that this in itself makes a difference, but I believe its
unique to a US president.

Beginning to wonder why this thread isn't in Omni/PR!

Visa reciprocity...what about permanent resident reciprocity?


Obama's brother with a degree from Brown University, a masters in physics
from Stanford and and MBA from Emory..speaks fluent putonghua and writes in Chinese calligraphy.

And has a hit video on youku.


http://buzz.youku.com/2009/01/18/bar...er-in-concert/

Go to Google News, and search for "China Yuan Manipulator" and see the most recent relationship between US and China as reported by the press around the world, since last Thursday, two days after inauguration.

I do hope that when Obama flys into Beijing the Chinese will dispense
with "Hei Gui" and " Fei Zhou Ren" and use the proper address of "Commander-In-Chief" Mei Guo Ren.

well all else fails "Xin Nian Kuai Le!"^

Thanks for the replies. I forgot I started this thread. I still have time to get the visa. I thought he, well Congress, might lower visa fees to stimulate tourism, or because visas really didn't cost that much to process.

Considering that most if not all US consulates and the embassy in China are always very busy with long lines and quotas for Chinese citizens to get in, the State Department may need to hire more people or build more consulates. Those may not be cheap.

And seriously, when has the US Federal Government (including the Congressional branch) ever really cared about tourism to the US?

They just built a huge new Embassy in Beijing. Bush amd his papa were there to open it right before the Olympics.

They allowed limited Chinese workers to build it, security reasons?

The U.S. should worry about the fact they need China to finance the stimulus (and huge budgetary deficit).

The Chinese buying the U.S. Treasuries was one of the main fuel for the last bubble. Where else would the Chinese park their money? And if the Chinese let the U.S. went into a deep depression, who's going to buy all their products?

Well, with a pretty big deficit, and more on the way, seems rather unlikely that the US government is going to lower fees on ANYTHING.....they need every cent they can get.

As you must know, the DHS has an astronomical budget, much of which gets passed on to things like visa processing. Furthermore, I would venture to guess that the actual cost of processing US visas is pretty close to the break-even point (the interviewers are all on nice salaries and the new embassy wasn't cheap; I bumped into a lot of the construction workers at various bars and they were all from San Antonio).

All true points.. Response to the bolded text below.

So was our unquenchable thirst for debt and things we wanted but couldn't afford with our savings/incomes. Everything has to equal out, right?

Totally agree. Americans were hungry to spend, spend and spend; while Chinese were willing to lend, even at pretty low yield. Bubble made in heaven.

That's a coincidence, that's Bush's home state.:D

No coincidence. The Construction Manager of Record was Zachry Construction of San Antonio. Selection of this company for this plum (lucrative) project, was completely political in nature due to its Texas/Bush/Republican connections, this is a well known fact. Most of the site and project managers were from the San Antonio area, but many of the other US construction personnel were from other locations.

The new embassy consists of multiple buildings. Chinese personnel were only used for certain tasks in some of the support buildings. When the Chancery (most sensitive part) was constructed, the entire site was cleared of all people except for US construction staff with Security Clearances.

Obama phoned Hu.

Looks like Obama is headed for China soon.^


The Chinese statement said Hu invited Obama to visit China "as soon as is convenient for both sides" and that Obama replied by saying he expected to visit China "at an early date."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090131...20090131055621

滴水穿石

brick by brick..he gonna make it stick

.............NO NO NO this cant be true !!! ??? !!! favours and political considerations determine awards of contracts ??...in a democracy ???!!! NO !!:rolleyes:

jie jie ...thank you.. i am really pleased that someone still calls a spade a spade ....^;)

It would encourage travel to lower the VISA fees.