Wipro’s SEC filing points to threat to business from Donald Trump

In what could be the first official documentation of US President Donald Trump's protectionist policies and outspoken animosity to outsourcing, Indian IT firm Wipro in its filing with the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has said Donald Trump is bad for business.

In its annual filing with US capital market regulator SEC, Wipro has specified that the US president's protectionist and anti-immigration policies could drag down its revenue. This is the first time an Indian IT company has explicitly labelled Trump's ''America First'' approach as a threat.

''Significant developments stemming from the recent US presidential election could have a material adverse effect on our business,'' Wipro, India's third-largest IT services firm, said in the document, which was filed on 2 June.

In a section detailing potential business threats, services firm noted: ''On November 8, 2016, Mr Donald J Trump was elected the next president of the United States. As a candidate, President Trump and his administration expressed support for policies impacting existing trade agreements, like North America Free trade agreement (NAFTA), and proposed trade agreements, and promoting greater restrictions on free trade generally and significant increases on tariffs on goods imported into the United States. Changes in US social, political, regulatory and economic conditions or in laws and policies governing foreign trade, manufacturing, development and investment in the territories and countries where we currently operate could adversely affect our business.

The US is a key market for Wipro but tighter immigration laws could make it harder to get work visas for its employees, the company noted. Top Indian IT firms get over 60 per cent of their revenue from the US. Wipro makes over 50 per cent from the Americas, including the US.

Over the past few months, Trump's anti-immigrant stance has raised concerns over the availability of the H-1B work visa, which is commonly used by software companies like Wipro to keep costs down by bringing Indian techies to the US

While the present legislation has made extensive changes to US immigration laws regarding the admission of highly-skilled temporary and permanent workers, there are some legislative proposals which, if passed and signed into law, could add further costs and/or restrictions to some of the high-skilled temporary worker categories and in turn, make doing business in the United States costly for many firms.