Bucking his base, Trump defends Chinese students in US
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US President Donald Trump said that lower-tier universities in the US would be hit hardest if Chinese students did not come.
PHOTO: EPA
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BEIJING – US President Donald Trump said on a visit to Beijing that he wants Chinese students to study in the United States, acknowledging he was disagreeing with some of his right-wing base.
Chinese student numbers have declined in the US due to factors including perceived hostility in Mr Trump’s America, as well as economic constraints inside the Asian power and the rise of China’s own universities.
“It is a very insulting thing to tell a country we don’t want your people in our schools,” Mr Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from Beijing broadcast late on May 14 in the US.
Mr Trump said that lower-tier universities in the US would be hit hardest if Chinese students did not come.
“They would then immediately go out and start building universities all over China,” he said, amid growing global recognition of Chinese universities, especially in science and technology.
Mr Trump rose to political prominence with harsh rhetoric against non-white immigrants, and for years has berated China, accusing it of cheating its way to economic might.
Asked by the conservative host if Chinese students were involved in nefarious activities, Mr Trump said: “Honestly, you know, they do things to us, and we do things to them.”
“Not everybody agrees with me, and it doesn’t sound like a very conservative position,” he said of his support of Chinese students.
“I am really a common sense guy, I think, more than a conservative guy.”
Mr Trump in 2025 also said he wanted to boost Chinese student numbers, contradicting his secretary of state, Mr Marco Rubio, who had publicly vowed to “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students.
The Trump administration has taken other actions that have discouraged students, including a temporary suspension of visas as it stepped up scrutiny of applicants’ social media postings.
Mr Rubio has boasted of stripping visas to international students who were involved in protests against Israel.
More than 265,000 Chinese students were studying in the US in the last academic year, with India now surpassing China as the top source of international students, according to a State Department-backed study.
International students are more likely to pay full tuition, providing a major lifeline for US universities.
Vice-President J.D. Vance, before taking office, had called on conservatives to find ways to weaken US universities, seeing them as hotbeds of support for the left. AFP
