It was one of those perfect Donald Trump social media posts — the kind that seems to straddle the line between truth and fiction, to bend and warp reality and make you ask, “Did he really just hit send on that?"

"Many in the fake news media have claimed that we will begin denying visas to overweight people," it began, before clarifying:

They have even come up with a term for these people, “High Calorie Humans.” This is TOTALLY FALSE. We will not ban all fat people from entering our Great Country, only those whose poor health will overburden our health care system. Visa applicants who are only slightly overweight have nothing to worry about. The bigger ones will need to trim down to get approved. We will EXPAND this rule to cover Expats in the near future.

The cherry on top was a closing swipe at one of Trump's favorite celebrity targets, currently in self-imposed exile in the Republic of Ireland: “Rosie, you will never return to This Great Country."

The US isn’t the first country in the world to limit entry to fat people. Other weight-watchers include Canada, Australia, and ultra-liberal New Zealand.

The phrase "High Calorie Humans" achieved instant "covfefe" status, as fans and haters alike reacted to the latest Trump provocation.

Fat shame

Except it was fake — a meme created in response to the very real news that the State Department has added obesity to the list of conditions that could bar foreigners from living in or visiting the U.S.

You know you're in the country's head when your constituents do your trolling for you. And you know you've hit a nerve when you dare suggest Americans could lose a few pounds — a form of truth-telling otherwise known as "fat-shaming."

But the U.S. is a country in which a Centers for Disease Control survey carried out between 2021 and 2023 found that a staggering 40.3% of adults were obese, with 9.4% having “severe” obesity.

That's using the standard metric of BMI, which uses height and weight to estimate body fat. But researchers have proposed including other anthropometric measurements in addition to BMI — such as waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, and waist-to-hip ratio — for a more accurate assessment of obesity. Using this metric, the proportion of obese Americans could skyrocket to as much as 68.6%.

Heavy burden

No matter how you measure obesity, its direct medical costs are estimated to be some $170 billion a year, a figure that rises to more than $1.4 trillion when you consider the added effects.

And that's the burden Trump's new directive hopes to ease. With millions of overweight Americans already straining the country's health care system — and hitting taxpayers where it hurts — the last thing the country needs is to take on more patients from other countries.

America already rejects visa applications for those with conditions (like diabetes) that could make them a "public charge" — that is, someone likely to become dependent on government assistance.

The new directive builds on previous “public charge” rules, but it’s the first time obesity has been named specifically.

The directive applies primarily to immigrant visas — visas that will lead to long-term or even permanent settlement in the U.S. — and not non-immigrant visas (such as H-1B visas) or short-term tourist visas. Fat foreigners will still be able to visit the U.S. and work there. They just won’t be able to settle, unless they lose weight.

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Weight-watchers

The U.S. isn’t the first country in the world to limit entry to fat people. Other weight-watchers include Canada, Australia, and ultra-liberal New Zealand.

In one well-publicized case from 2009, the Kiwis denied residency to a British nurse who tipped the scales at 134 kg and had a BMI of over 50. A BMI of 25 is considered healthy. Officials estimated that her lifetime costs to the taxpayer could exceed NZ $800,000 or about US $500,000 at the time.

Canada and Australia have similar rules in place, but they receive much less attention.

Otherwise, though, there aren’t many “anti-fat” laws in effect worldwide. There’s Japan’s “Metabo” law, which came into effect in 2008. It is often described, misleadingly, as some kind of “ban” on fat people per se, but it’s not.

Instead, the law imposes an obligation on companies to ensure that workers between ages 40 and 74 receive an annual waistline measurement and help losing weight if they need it. Companies that don’t comply can be fined, but overweight workers themselves are not subject to any form of official punishment. In any case, Japan still has a remarkably low obesity rate, of around 4%.

Open borders for hotties?

I and other posters in my little corner of X have long called for restrictions of various kinds on overweight people, including proposals to prevent fat people from entering the country, in the name of beauty and the general welfare.

One of these proposals was even given the name “open borders for hotties”: If you’re fit and attractive (ideally female), you’re welcome, but if not — no thanks!

Critics will moan that Trump’s new rules for “HIGH-CALORIE HUMANS” are unfair and discriminatory, but frankly I can’t think of a policy that’s more in line with the fundamental MAGA principles. Immigration should benefit the nation, not sap its strength and resources. If a massively overweight person comes to the U.S. and the taxpayer has to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover his medical bills, what’s America First about that?

Instead of that fat person, a slim person with discipline and self-control could be brought into the country — or better yet, no immigrant at all. The money would be better spent elsewhere, and there are too many people in the country as it is.

The “HIGH-CALORIE HUMANS” rules are a clear sign, for all their apparent absurdity, that President Trump still understands what MAGA is and what it should stand for. Let’s see that understanding applied to immigration policy across the board and most of all to the H-1B visa system, which has been used for decades to disenfranchise and dispossess native workers. High calories, low wages — same difference.