Treaty Trader / Investor Visa E-1 & E-2
One of the ways in which the United States promotes international trade and commerce is by entering into treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation with selected countries. This opens the door for buying and selling goods and services, as well as investment, between the US and the treaty country.
The Treaty Trader / Investor Visa E-1 & E-2 is specifically designed to facilitate travel to the US of a trader or investor who is a citizen of a treaty country. It’s as simple as that. If you happen to be a trader, you will get an E-1 visa, while investors would get an E-2 visa.
Why it pays to be an aluminum genius Investor E-2 Visa
Lee Sengupta was an odd name, even in Suriname where people had the oddest names. Lee is a Chinese and Sengupta is from Bengal, India. As the product of a marriage between Chinese and Bengali indentured laborers, you’d have expected Lee’s looks to match those countries but instead he was short, bald and dark at pitchblende. He looked like no one more than his Ghanaian grandfather who had also been brought to Suriname as a slave. Lee was a typical Surinamese extreme hybrid.
He was also one of a handful of world experts in the disposal of radioactive waste from aluminum manufacture. He had earned his doctorate in metallurgy from the South Africa Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
If you want to know how he ended up living in the United States, we have to start in the bauxite mine at Accaribo, where Lee’s father ran a family business buying bauxite from the mining giant Suralco, and converting it to alumina and aluminum for export to the United States. Suriname is the world’s sixth largest producer of bauxite.
It struck Lee that he could set up a company on US soil which could then buy bauxite from Suralco. He decided to invest $200,000 to buy a majority shareholding in a small company called Alcorium that processed bauxite into alumina and aluminum in Louisiana. Pretty soon he had a thriving aluminum business going on in that state.
It was the perfect time for Lee to make a trip to the United States. Fortunately for him, this turned out to be easier than he had imagined.
Lee applied to the US Consulate in Suriname to be recognized as a Treaty Investor, a special status accorded to investors from countries the US had a free trade agreement with. Way back in 1957, the US had entered into a free trade treaty with the Netherlands covering Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. In 1963, the treaty had been extended to cover Suriname.
Since he had made a sizable investment in Alcorium, Lee easily won Treaty Investor status. After that, it was a cakewalk. He applied for an E-2 visa, given to Treaty Investors. Within 10 days, he had a three-year visa to enter and work in his own company in the US.
One of the ways in which the United States promotes international trade and commerce is by entering into treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation with selected countries. This opens the door for buying and selling goods and services, as well as investment, between the US and the treaty country.
The E visa is specifically designed to facilitate travel to the US of a trader or investor who is a citizen of a treaty country. It’s as simple as that. If you happen to be a trader, you will get an E-1 visa, while investors would get an E-2 visa.
As for Lee, he was spoilt rotten by his three years in the US. He just fell in love with that country. When his visa came to an end, he applied for and received a three-year extension. He already has a girl he wants to marry — and is pretty sure he won’t be going back to Suriname anytime soon.
You can get more information on the Treaty Trader / Investor Visa E-1 & E-2 from the detailed, user-friendly visa guides you get when you buy one of our Visa Plans.