President Donald Trump ignited fresh controversy Tuesday night after claiming the United States “doesn’t have talented people” in certain fields, arguing that the country must rely on foreign labor to fill critical industrial and technical jobs.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Trump defended the use of H-1B visas and other guest worker programs, a sharp turnaround to his campaign promise to prioritize American jobs and curb foreign labor.

“You do have to bring in talent when a country needs it,” Trump said during The Ingraham Angle, as the two toured his reconstruction of the White House’s East Wing.

When Ingraham pushed back — “We have plenty of talented people here” — Trump shot back bluntly:

“No, you don’t. You don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.’”

The exchange quickly grew tense as Ingraham pressed the president on whether expanding foreign worker programs would undermine his populist agenda and promises to rebuild the U.S. manufacturing base.

Trump insisted that certain industries simply lack domestic expertise. Citing a recent immigration raid in Georgia, he said hundreds of skilled South Korean battery technicians had been forced out, leaving factories without workers capable of teaching Americans the trade.

“Making batteries is very complicated — not an easy thing and very dangerous,” Trump said. “They had five or six hundred people to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out… You’re going to need that, Laura.”

The remarks immediately sparked backlash from conservative commentators and labor advocates, who accused Trump of abandoning the economic nationalism that helped propel him to the presidency.

Yet Trump appeared unfazed, suggesting that American workers can’t meet every modern challenge alone.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)