India, Nov. 14 -- It was TACO (Trump always chickens out) time again, as US President Donald Trump dialled down the emphasis on the immigration of skilled workers into the US. Less than two months after he raised H-1B visa fees to a prohibitive $100,000 - this amount is higher than the median wage for entry-level H-1B employees - Trump has accepted that the US cannot do without skilled migrants from other countries. To be sure, Trump's initial H-1B bombshell was diluted much earlier when his administration clarified that those shifting their US visa status to H-1B - this would include university students etc. in the US - need not pay the high fees. Trump's change of stance is perfectly rational. The US and its blue-collar workforce are right about America's decline as a manufacturing power, a position which they first ceded to the Japanese, and eventually to the Chinese. But the US as a whole has undergone anything but economic decline, not just in the realm of finance but also, cutting-edge science and technology. A lot of this success has come from the work done by skilled migrants of other nationalities in the US who have either studied in America or migrated there to pursue better employment opportunities. Asia, primarily China and India, but also other smaller countries, has been the main supply line of skilled workers in the US, as was reported in these pages a couple of days ago. Rationality aside, Trump's about-turn from his hawkish stance on skilled immigrants and the regulations concerning them also amounts to a partisan act by him, as far as the ideological divide between his supporters in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) and big business camps is concerned. The former has been critical of the ecosystem that makes the US an attractive place for skilled migrants, while the latter has been consistently underlining their centrality to the fortunes of US business and its overall economic and technological prowess. For a country like India, which has been the biggest beneficiary of the H-1B visa programme by a distance and is also one of the biggest sources of international students in the US, all this is good news. This, however, should not lead to complacency but yet another lesson that there is no other option but a continuous, patient and nimble engagement with Trump's America....