US President Donald Trump reiterated his support for Chinese students in America on Thursday and pledged to help them remain in the country after graduation, distancing himself from initiatives that his administration has announced to limit or block international students because of national security concerns.
“I’ve always been strongly in favour of it. I think it’s a great thing,” Trump said on Thursday, referring to Chinese nationals seeking to study in the US.
“It’s also good for our schools. It’s good for our country.”
Trump added that he was in favour of “letting them stay” and being hired by American companies.
“I’m all for making sure that people like that can go to work for all of our great companies,” he said.
If not allowed to remain in the US, he noted, such graduates and entrepreneurs would return to their countries and starting their businesses there.
“This is happening all the time because they’re not allowed to stay, and I think we’ll probably end up doing something about that, right?” he added.
Last month, the Trump administration ordered US embassies worldwide to halt scheduling new student visa interviews, including in China, as part of a broader plan to expand social media vetting for visa applications.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio then announced plans to “aggressively revoke” visas for Chinese students, particularly those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or studying in “critical fields”. The policy specifically targeted students from mainland China and Hong Kong.
Trump has promoted student visas as a pivotal factor in a much-anticipated trade deal that he has said is “done” once Chinese President Xi Jinping approves it.
Intensifying the review of Chinese student visa applicants has been part of a broader Trump crackdown on US academia’s links with China, a campaign that dates back to his first term, when policymakers began raising alarms about whether these educational contacts were giving Beijing a technological edge.
But Trump’s latest comments appear to flip the narrative into one suggesting that Chinese students are needed for US technological progress.
According to the US State Department, 277,398 Chinese students attended US schools during the 2023–2024 school year, a four per cent decrease from the previous year.
Additionally, India overtook China as the top source of international students in the US, with 331,602 students – an increase of 23 per cent year-over-year.
Chinese students had been the largest foreign student group in the US since the 2009–2010 school year, but their numbers have steadily declined since 2019–2020.
While his remarks implied that Trump was now open to cooperation, many in Congress remain sceptical of Beijing’s intentions.
Earlier on Thursday, during a congressional hearing, US lawmakers accused China of stealing advanced semiconductor technology and exploiting relationships with American universities, as well as loopholes in export controls, to strengthen its military capabilities.
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”, Representative Bill Huizenga, a Michigan Republican who chairs a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on South and Central Asia, contended.
The hearing was held to review the proposed 2026 budget for the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Commerce Department agency that enforces export controls. The budget calls for a 133 per cent increase in enforcement funding, after BIS saw about a third of its staff cut by Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency”.
Defending the budget request, Jeffrey Kessler, the department’s undersecretary for industry and security, insisted that additional resources were essential to improve enforcement.
“We could do a lot more with the additional resources that we’re requesting … I’m concerned that many instances of wrongdoing go undetected, and that’s what the budget request is about,” Kessler said.
During his testimony, Kessler warned against underestimating China’s ambitions.
“China is investing huge amounts to increase its AI chip production, as well as the capabilities of the chips that it produces.
“So it’s critical for us not to have a false sense of security, to understand that China is catching up quickly,” Kessler said.
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