Trump expresses support for allowing 600,000 Chinese students into U.S. colleges

President Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his comments from the day before on allowing 600,000 Chinese students to pursue higher education in America. He described the idea of locking Chinese students out of U.S. universities as insulting, adding that colleges depended on foreign attendance. The American college system would crumble very fast without foreign students, starting with lower-tier colleges, he said during a Tuesday cabinet meeting.

Trump said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that America is honored to host foreign students. The president’s comments on their face appeared to conflict with the administration’s previous plan to revoke visas tied to the Chinese Communist Party shared by State Secretary Marco Rubio in May. Trump said Tuesday that Rubio shared his position, and the administration is very careful about which students they allow in. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed Trump’s comments during a Monday interview, saying the lowest 15% of universities in America would go bankrupt without foreign students.

Trump shared positive sentiments towards China during the meeting, saying he and Xi are getting along well and each has great respect for the other. Trump credited his administration’s recently enacted tariffs on China for changing the pair’s relationship. China respects the United States now that they aren't taking hundreds of millions of dollars from it, he said.

How are politicians responding? Several from the GOP slammed the president’s plan, including longtime Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. The 15% of universities that depend on funding from Chinese students should close down instead of letting the Chinese Communist Party prop them up, she wrote Monday. Leaders should never allow Chinese students to take American opportunities, she added.

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., echoed Greene’s sentiments in a Tuesday statement. China is not a friend to America, and its agents should not be allowed to infiltrate schools where federally funded research is conducted, he said. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, reported that the roughly 300,000 Chinese students currently attending American universities receive heavy pressure from the Communist Party to operate as spies. These students pose a serious threat to national security, the group wrote Tuesday.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on the latest tariff update with China.