“We’ve been too loosey-goosey for too long. There’s a tremendous amount of money missing at the SBA back from the Biden administration and so forth,” he said Tuesday.
“Some options aren’t the best. Maybe we need to have one [option] and grow from there,” Williams added.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), ranking members of the Senate and House Small Business Committees, respectively, condemned the move by the SBA.
“The Trump administration is stoking the flames of hatred, spreading fear and confusion among immigrants and small business owners. Rather than support hard-working legal immigrants to start or expand a business, the Trump SBA is choosing hatred by barring green card holders from receiving an SBA loan,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “The Administration’s message to immigrants is clear: you are not welcome to pursue the American Dream.”
SBA spokesperson Maggie Clemmons said the agency under the Trump administration “is committed to driving economic growth and job creation for American citizens – which is why, effective March 1, the agency will no longer guarantee loans for small businesses owned by foreign nationals.”
The agency expects to to offer “even more capital in the near future pending legislation to increase SBA loan limits for small businesses that are hiring, building, and producing in America,” Clemmons said. The House passed a bill in December to increase loan limits for small manufacturers under SBA loan programs, but the measure has not yet progressed in the Senate.
The original guidance also applied to the much smaller SBA 504 loan program that provides long-term, fixed rate financing for major purchases such as real estate or equipment, which presumably will be required to follow the same policy change as the 7(a) loan program.