LOS ANGELES (OC(.–Antagonizing his conservative base, 79-year-old President Donald Trump proposed allowing 600,000 Chinese students into the U.S. to attend some of the nation’s most elite colleges and universities. Instead of Democrats and the fake news applauding Trump’s gesture to China, Trump has been slammed by conservatives and liberals alike. Doubling the number of Chinese students would double the $14 billion in revenue it already brings the U.S. economy, something Trump sees as a win-win for China and the United States. Trump has been back-and-forth with China on tariffs and wants to make a solid gesture to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Under former President Joe Biden, U.S.-Chinese relations deteriorated to the point that Biden was talking about deploying U.S. troops to defend Taiwan. Since Trump came to office, Xi no longer talks about invading Taiwan.
Trump’s enemies in the press were quick to point out that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that he would “aggressively revoke” visas for Chinese students, with many conservatives seeing Chinese students as spies. “Why are we allowing 600,000 students from China to replace our American student’s opportunities,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on platform X. “We should never allow that,” Greene said. When Greene says it takes opportunities away from American students, she’s referring to increased competition to get into the nation’s most selective colleges, sometimes with acceptance rates well under 10%. “Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese ‘students’ AKA Communist spies in the United States,” said Conservative actives Laura Loomer on X. Trump sees the gesture as one of cultural good well for Communist China.
Calling the students spies goes over the top for Loomer, known as a conservative flame-thrower, sounding her xenophobic self. Trump sees the added revenue to the struggling colllegs and university system a good thing for the U.S. economy. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was criticized by Fox News Laura Ingraham. “Well the presidents point of vew is that what would happen if you didn’t have those 600,000 students is that you’d empty them from the top, all the students would go to better schools, and the bottom 15% of universities and colleges would go out of business in America,” Lutnick said. With college enrollment down in the United States, most university administrators welcome more students from China, India, Mideast or wherever. Ingraham and her conservative friends expose their xenophobia, automatically blaming foreign students.
When it comes to college admissions game at the most selective schools, Chinese students have no more chance of getting in than anyone else. When you consider there are many fine universities and colleges hurting for enrollment, adding an addition 300,000 Chinese students about the level currently enrolled in the U.S. makes perfect sense. What country in the world would turn away as cash cow like full tuition paying college students? Adding another $14 billion to the U.S. economy only helps all businesses, doesn’t exclude U.S. students from seeking enrollment in top U.S. colleges. When it comes to the nation’s most exclusive colleges, Chinese students have no better chance of getting in than anyone else. Democrats and the fake news are having a field day with Trump’s decision to admit 300,000 more Chinese students into American colleges and universities.
Confronting a demographic shift around the country, there are less college age students available looking to enroll in college. Since the Great Recessions of 2007-2008, young couples have been having less children, a growing trend in Europe and Asia. Colleges and Universities around the country are forced into mergers, acquisitions and even closures, all because the same enrollment doesn’t exist that once did. So, when Trump sees an chance to infuse the university system with extra tuition-paying students, he sees a real opportunity. Conservative activists need to stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. Colleges and Universities can use as much enrollment as they can get, whether foreign or domestic. Chinese students studying in American aren’t happy listening to the xenophobia and outright baseless accusations of spying by Chinese students.
When you consider the overall benefit of increased college and university enrollment, Trump’s conservative base should stop making baseless accusations of opening the floodgates of Communist spies into the U.S. “I think it’s just blatant racism and xenophobia,” said a Chinese student who recently graduated from a university in the Washington, D.C. area. “We are not spies. We are students who want to get a better education,” said the student, raising a real problem for today’s workforce. Most of the jobs created in the AI-powered economy requiring advance education, something in decline in the U.S. Trump figures it’s a win-win to allow more Chinese College students to study in the U.S., opening the door for China and at the same time helping struggling American colleges and universities currently scrambling for enrollment. Trump sees no downside at all.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
