Trump says the U.S. would accept 600,000 Chinese students, sparking uproar from some Republicans
President Donald Trump’s latest comments on the authorization of hundreds of thousands of Chinese international students in the United States aroused some of the most frank members of the Republican Party.
Before his meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the White House on Monday, Trump told journalists that he planned to authorize 600,000 Chinese students in the country-a figure more than double the number in the United States now.
“We will hear ourselves well with China. I hear so many stories about “We are not going to allow their students” to come, said Trump. “We are going to allow, very important, 600,000 students. It’s very important. ”
It is a lively gap compared to a state of state of state of announcement that Marco Rubio made in May, when he promised that the United States “would aggressively revoke” the visas for Chinese students and add more examination to all future Visa requests from China.
While Trump stressed that the “important” American relationship with the country, other members of his party in his party were not disagreed. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA., Tilted against the idea on social networks.
“Why do we allow 600,000 China students to replace the opportunities of our American student?” Greene wrote on X. “We should never allow it.”
The far -right influencer and the candidate twice of the Republican Congress Laura Loomer also criticized the idea, calling Chinese students “communist spies”.
“Nobody, I do not repeat anyone, wants 600,000 other Chinese” students “alias of communist spies in the United States,” wrote Loomer on X.
Neither the White House nor the State Department immediately answered questions from NBC News on the change of policy or the criticisms of the members of the GOP.
In the Fox News show “The Ingraham Angle”, the secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick aroused criticism from the host Laura Ingraham that Trump’s comments are contrary to his policy of “America first”, saying that this decision was economical.
“Well, the president’s point of view is that what would happen if you did not have these 600,000 students is that you empty them from the summit, all the students went in better schools, and the 15% of universities and colleges would go bankrupt in America,” said Lutnick.
There were around 277,398 Chinese international students in the United States during the 2023-2024 school year. With students from India, the group represents more than half of the country’s international students. In 2023, Chinese students contributed more than $ 14 billion to the US economy.
But republican legislators have long tried to resolve the flow of Chinese students in the United States. In March, members of the Republican Congress presented the CCP visa law, which would stop the issuance of student visas to Chinese nationals who seek to study in American universities or to participate in exchange programs. The bill has carried out generalized reactions of activists, schools and others, including Chinese students, who qualified the law “new law on Chinese exclusion”.
“I think it’s just blatant racism and xenophobia,” said a Chinese student who recently graduated from a University in Washington, in the DC region, in NBC News. The student asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals. “We are not spies. We are students who want to get a better education. ”
Trump’s latest comments on students come when tensions between the United States and China have released slightly earlier this year when the two countries threatened with high prices. The discussions continued and the rate rates have cooled as a commercial truce of 90 days, established in May, was extended until November.
Trump told journalists that it was “a much better economic relationship than before with Biden”. However, on Monday, he also threatened to impose rates of 200% on China if the country does not export rare magnets
