It’s ‘business’: Why Trump suddenly realises Chinese foreign students are ‘good for US’

Earlier this year, as the US–China relationship deteriorated, the Trump administration announced that it would crack down on Chinese students.

However, as trade talks between the US and China continue, it seems that US President Donald Trump has reversed course. Trump is now defending the influx of foreign students, particularly the Chinese, into American universities.

“You don’t want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country — destroy our entire university and college system — I don’t want to do that,” Trump said on The Laura Ingraham Show on Fox News on Monday.

“We take in trillions of dollars from students. You know, the students pay more than double when they come in from most foreign countries. I want to see our school system thrive… It’s not that I want them, but I view it as a business,” he told the Fox News host. “I actually think it’s good to have outside countries. Look, I want to be able to get along with the world.”

But what happened? What’s behind his U-turn on Chinese students? How much do Chinese students contribute to the American economy?

Let’s take a closer look.

What happened? What has Trump said?

Trump, during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, reiterated his remarks over the weekend.

“I told this to President Xi that we’re honoured to have their students here,” Trump said. “Now, with that, we check and we’re careful, we see who is there.”

Trump, speaking at the White House on Monday, said he wants to welcome at least another 600,000 Chinese students to America. “I hear so many stories that we’re not going to allow their students,” Trump told reporters.

“We’re going to allow their students to come in. It’s very important, 600,000 students. It’s very important. But we’re going to get along with China.”

His remarks came a day after his Fox News interview with Ingraham. It also came after Trump made similar remarks in an interview with the conservative outlet Daily Caller. “I think that it’s very insulting to a country,” Trump said. “I have a very good relationship with President Xi. I think it’s very insulting to a country when you say you’re not going to take your students.”

“It’s also good for our system. When you take them out, you know who’s going to be affected — the lesser colleges. The top colleges aren’t going to be; it’s the lesser colleges that are,” he said.

The development comes months after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US would aggressively revoke the visas of Chinese students. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in May.

The administration has also proposed a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”, which would limit international student enrolments to 15 per cent of total undergraduate numbers and disallow any country from having over 5 per cent of international students as undergraduates.

Rubio wasn’t the only one in the Trump administration vowing a crackdown on Chinese students.

“Admission to the United States to study at an ‘elite’ American university is a privilege, not a right,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media in June.

This came months after a Congressional committee in the House sent a letter to several US universities demanding information about enrolled Chinese nationals, specifically those studying advanced science, technology, engineering, and medicine.

John Moolenaar, chair of the Congressional committee, had claimed that the Chinese Communist Party was infiltrating top US institutions to gain access to sensitive and cutting-edge technology.

Beijing is “trying to dominate these critical technologies by any means necessary – through state subsidies, forced tech transfers, economic espionage, chip smuggling, and exploiting access to the West’s most innovative AI labs and universities”, Bill Huizenga, a Michigan Republican who chairs a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on South and Central Asia, claimed in June.

What Chinese students contribute to the American economy

The data show that this 600,000 number, if achieved, would be the highest number of Chinese students ever admitted to the United States in history. That number was 370,000 in 2019 – which was its peak – and has dipped since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the US State Department states that 277,398 Chinese students were enrolled at US universities during the 2023–2024 academic year. They comprise nearly 25 per cent of the over one million international students in America and are second only to Indian students, who comprise nearly 30 per cent of international students.

There were 331,602 Indian students enrolled in US universities during the 2023–2024 academic year. However, the data show that the number of Chinese students in the US has been going down over the years. Chinese students comprised 27.4 per cent of international students during the 2022–2023 academic year. That number was 34.7 per cent in the 2020–2021 academic year. Experts say Chinese students would have contributed over $11 billion (Rs. 9.75 lakh crore) to the US economy in the 2023–2024 academic year.

What’s behind his U-turn on Chinese students?

Trump is likely trying to pull back on his threats to China with one eye on the impending trade deal. He is also perhaps looking at the way the Supreme Court is poised to rule on his tariffs case.

A number of lower courts have sided with colleges who have sued the Trump administration for trying to impose restrictions on them and withhold their grant money.

There’s also the possibility that Trump is looking at what could be beneficial to his own bottom line when it comes to striking deals with China – as he has with Pakistan.

Overall, experts are not impressed. “I think the vagueness is part of the [Trump administration’s] strategy, because it is not about a concrete policy,” Kyle Chan, a researcher on China at Princeton University, told Al Jazeera in May. “I don’t think it’s really, at the end of the day, about national security and trying to find the few individuals who may pose a genuine risk.”

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Trump told Xi during a phone call in June that “the US loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called on the US to halt “unprovoked harassment, interrogation, and deportation” of Chinese students.

Trump infuriates Maga base

The development has left many in his Make America Great Again (Maga) base, including allies such as Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene, infuriated.

Loomer, taking to X, called Chinese students “CCP spies” and claimed Trump was undermining his “America First” agenda. “I didn’t vote for more Muslims and Chinese people to be imported to my country… Please don’t Make America China. Maga doesn’t want more immigrants,” she wrote.

“Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese ‘students’ aka Communist spies in the United States. China murdered 1.2 million Americans. Now they get to replace us? This cannot happen.”

“If refusing to allow these Chinese students to attend our schools causes 15 per cent of them to fail, then these schools should fail anyway because they are being propped up by the CCP,” Greene wrote on social media.

Trump adviser Steve Bannon added, “Any foreign student that does come here ought to have an exit visa stapled to his or her diploma to leave immediately. Give them 30 days.”

Christopher Rufo wrote on X, “We can’t accept 600,000 Chinese students. If anything, we should reduce the number of Chinese visas, especially for students with political connections to the CCP.”

With inputs from agencies