In an interview that aired on Monday, President Trump doubled down on his plan to accept 600,000 Chinese students over the next two years. He initially floated this idea in August. On both occasions, his statements drew significant criticism from conservatives.
NOW – Trump says 600,000 Chinese students coming to the U.S. is a pro-MAGA stance because “you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business… I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else.” pic.twitter.com/uexYM3Xsgw
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 11, 2025
Allowing 600,000 Chinese nationals to study at our universities poses a grave national security risk. It’s a green light for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) unrestricted warfare. China has long exploited American college campuses — and American innovation — to further its national agenda, such as aiming to achieve self-sufficiency in technology and dominance in high-tech manufacturing.
READ MORE: Watch: Laura Ingraham Challenges Trump During Interview, Exposes Schisms Within the Movement
There’s No Hiding It; China’s Actions Say It’s Planning a Preemptive Attack on the US
China’s National Intelligence Law, enacted in 2017, requires all Chinese companies and nationals, regardless of location, to support Beijing’s national intelligence work. Article 14 of the law lays the foundation for Chinese intelligence agencies to compel such cooperation. Students are frequently coerced into spying for the state, with their families facing retaliation if they refuse to comply.
Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) carry out the CCP’s united front work, surveilling Chinese students, promoting pro-CCP narratives, and silencing dissenting voices. These associations work closely with Chinese embassy officials to advance Beijing’s global transnational repression campaign through harassment, intimidation, espionage, and assault. Some CSSAs have successfully blocked anti-CCP figures from speaking at institutions and disrupted other events.
Another channel through which Chinese students share intelligence with Chinese officials is the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC). Recipients of scholarships via the CSC are required to provide updates of their research projects to the Chinese consulate on a regular basis and to report dissent to government handlers, consistent with their loyalty pledges.
Beyond the university setting, Chinese nationals studying in the U.S. have been caught spying on U.S. military facilities and personnel.
Intelligence officials have identified universities as “soft targets” for intellectual property (IP) theft. The U.S. economy is estimated to lose up to $600 billion per year due to IP theft.
A significant portion of Chinese students in the U.S. — more than half of Chinese doctoral students in the U.S. in academic year 2018/19, a figure that has only increased — are in STEM fields, which makes the risk of espionage that is highly detrimental to our national security greater and the argument for restricting — or suspending — visas issued to Chinese students and researchers even stronger.
To make matters worse, there are plenty of cases of Chinese students smuggling potential biological weapons — a component of the CCP’s unrestricted warfare — into the U.S., most notably, a fungus known as Fusarium graminearum, which is highly toxic to humans and animals and could cause billions of dollars in economic damage. These individuals had access to research laboratories at the University of Michigan.
SEE ALSO: Chinese National Nabbed by DOJ for Allegedly Smuggling in Biological Material—and She’s From Wuhan
They Haven’t Stopped: Chinese Students Attempted to Smuggle Agricultural Bioweapon Into US
Nearly half of the 277,398 Chinese students in the U.S. are pursuing advanced degrees. Doctoral degree programs provide tuition waivers and a generous living stipend, funded by the taxpayer.
We are currently enriching our top foreign enemy by training and funding its nationals, most of whom return home upon graduation (usually due to the terms of their government-funded scholarships) or are subsequently recruited through the Thousand Talents Plan, a government-run program that seeks to attract talent to bolster China’s scientific, economic, and military goals and rewards individuals for stealing sensitive information and critical foreign technology.
President Trump claimed that if the total number of Chinese students in the U.S. were cut in half, half of the country’s colleges “would go out of business.” Maybe this is what needs to happen. For far too long, colleges have put short-term financial interests above America’s national security without facing consequences.
It is clear that the decades-long status quo has worked against our national interests by opening up American higher education to espionage and abuse. Now is the time to seriously reconsider existing policy. President Trump must force universities to choose America over China.
The administration needs to bear in mind that 75 percent of Trump voters view China as a “high” or “extremely high” threat to the U.S.’s national security, 91 percent of Trump voters voiced concern about CSSAs, and 68 percent of Republican voters favor limiting the number of Chinese students in the U.S.
The bottom line: America doesn’t need 600,000 Chinese students. The vast majority of MAGA seems to agree with this view as well.
Admittedly, this plan seems uncharacteristic of the administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced at the end of May the State Department’s intentions to “aggressively revoke” Chinese students’ visas and “to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.” Tammy Bruce, the State Department’s spokesperson, clearly highlighted the risk:
When it comes to keeping America safe, the United States, I further can say here, will not tolerate the CCP’s exploitation of U.S. universities or theft of U.S. research intellectual property or technologies to grow its military power, conduct intelligence collection or repress voices of opposition.
In 2020, the Trump administration rightly issued a proclamation that halted the entry of Chinese nationals seeking to study in the U.S. who were affiliated with entities that supported China’s military-civil fusion strategy:
The PRC authorities use some Chinese students, mostly post‑graduate students and post-doctorate researchers, to operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property. Thus, students or researchers from the PRC studying or researching beyond the undergraduate level who are or have been associated with the PLA are at high risk of being exploited or co-opted by the PRC authorities and provide particular cause for concern. In light of the above, I have determined that the entry of certain nationals of the PRC seeking to enter the United States pursuant to an F or J visa to study or conduct research in the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.
Could this plan be part of something more strategic, something bigger — a bargaining chip that will eventually be taken off the table? A negotiation strategy as we work to decouple our critical minerals supply chain from China in the next year? Time will tell.
In the meantime, it is incumbent upon us to continue urging the administration to reconsider this scheme that, if implemented, would be a gift to China.
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