&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Trump defends his U-turn on Chinese student visas after severe backlash from MAGA supporters")
US President Donald Trump has defended his decision to issue 600,000 Chinese student visas, despite a backlash from his MAGA supporters. He told the Daily Caller on Sunday that it would be “insulting” to ban the Chinese students and said his move would benefit smaller universities. Trump’s announcement is a sharp departure from his administration’s crackdown on Chinese students launched earlier this year and has caught his conservative base off guard.
In May, the Trump administration said that it will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move would include “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields”. The relations between Washington and Beijing were on a downhill trend then, prompted by a tit-for-tat trade war that was sparked by Trump’s tariffs.
‘Those are 600,000 spots that American kids won’t get’
Some of his allies in the MAGA wing of Trump’s Republican Party have expressed anger and confusion. “I just don't understand it for the life of me,” said Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “Those are 600,000 spots that American kids won’t get.”
Trump ally Laura Loomer wrote on X, “Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese ‘students’ aka Communist spies in the United States.”
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US would struggle without Chinese students: Trump
Trump defended his position by claiming that Chinese students bring money to the US economy and that denying them visas would weaken relations between the two countries.
During a cabinet meeting last Tuesday, Trump said, “I told this to President Xi that we’re honoured to have their students here. Now, with that, we check and we’re careful, we see who is there.”
Trump added that the US would struggle without Chinese students.
“I have a very good relationship with [Chinese] President Xi. I think it’s very insulting to a country when you say you’re not going to take their students,” Trump told the Daily Caller, a right-wing news outlet.
“You know, I get along with China,” he added. “China’s paying us a lot of money right now. They’re paying us hundreds of millions of dollars.”
‘It’s good to get along with countries’
The White House has said that the 600,000 student visas will be issued over the next two years, in line with numbers issued in previous years.
Trump told the Daily Caller he did not expect anything in return for allowing students into the country.
“No, I just think it’s, I think it’s, I think what we’re doing is the right thing to do. It’s good to get along with countries, not bad, especially, you know, nuclear-powered countries,” he said.
