Trump’s comments came after presenter Laura Ingraham claimed the US was “dependent on China” to fund its universities.
To which the President responded: “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.”
“We take in trillions of dollars from students. The students pay more than double when they come in from most foreign countries, I want to see our school system thrive,” he added: “It’s not that I want them, but I view it as a business.”
Ingraham told Trump: “A lot of MAGA folks are not thrilled about this idea of hundreds of thousands of foreign students in the United States.”
She challenged him with the narrative widely peddled by vice-president Vance that there is a fixed number of US university seats and that any international student who comes into the country takes that seat from a domestic student.
During the interview, Ingraham cited Trump’s figure from earlier this year when said he would allow 600,000 Chinese students to come to the US – more than double the 277,000 Chinese students recorded in America in 2023/24.
The two exchanged foreign policy spars, with Ingraham claiming that the Chinese “spy on us, they steal our intellectual property”.
Trump’s defence of international students in the US stands in sharp contrast to his administration’s policies, which have created enormous visa challenges for international students, including a partial travel ban on 19 nations and a near month-long suspension of new visa interviews during peak processing time this year.
Last month, the administration sent its so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to all US colleges, which would include a 15% cap on institutions’ international student undergraduate enrolments, and a 5% limit on students from any one country.
More recently, the government declared it had revoked 8,000 international student visas during Trump’s second term, which is more than double the number for 2024.
It’s not that I want them, but I view it as a business
Donald Trump, US President
Chinese students have come under the most scrutiny from the MAGA base. In a move seemingly intended to gain leverage in trade talks with Beijing, secretary of state Marco Rubio announced earlier this year he would start “aggressively” revoking Chinese student visas.
Prior to this, a group of Republican congresspeople proposed legislation to halt the issuance of all student visas to Chinese nationals, arguing that Chinese students “spy on our military, steal our intellectual property and threaten national security”.
Trump’s rhetoric, however, occasionally contradicts his administration’s hostile policies, including his stated aim of doubling Chinese student numbers when he said the college system would “go to hell very quickly” without international student fees.
This seeming recognition of the financial value of international students aligns with sector advocacy that has repeatedly emphasised their economic importance, contributing $43.8bn to the US economy in 2024, according to NAFSA.
But recently proposed policies – including threats to rescind OPT, set time limits on student visas and overhaul the H1-B visa system – are shrinking America’s STEM talent pool, which a new study warned could cause annual losses of up to $480bn for the next decade.
As outlined in the report, international students make up roughly half of all STEM graduate enrolments in the US and foreign-born workers account for nearly a third of the high-skill STEM workforce.
What’s more, recent analysis of the ripple effects of China’s college expansion revealed Chinese students’ central role in driving the US boom in STEM master’s programs, and in creating more university places for other international and domestic students.
