WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump said on August 25 that the U.S. will welcome 600,000 students from China. This astonished many people and upset his devoted supporters. The assertion was made at a White House press conference, where he again lauded the relationship between the U.S. and China and said that tariffs were “making a lot of money” for the U.S.
Many of his admirers have not liked what he said and have gone to social media to show their anger. One person who called themselves a “patriot” attacked the statement by comparing it to the amount of Indian students. They wrote, “There are already 331K Indian student visas.” He will put a green card on their diplomas with a stapler. He wants to make Ethnic Americans the lower class and give the Indians and Chinese the upper class. Other critics agreed, with one saying, “The number should be zero,” and another saying that the surge of foreign students will “displace Americans.”
The criticism is interesting because Trump’s comment seems to go against what his own government is doing. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said in May 2025 that the U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in important fields.” This restriction came after fewer Chinese students were enrolling in U.S. schools.
The Open Doors 2024 Report says that 277,398 Chinese students went to college in the United States during the 2023–2024 school year. This number has been going down since it reached its highest point of 372,532 in the 2019–2020 school year. On the other hand, the number of Indian students in the U.S. has been going up. India was the leading supplier of international students for the first time since 2009, with 331,602 Indian students enrolled in the 2023–2024 school year.
But Trump’s most recent comments make it seem like he might change how he treats Chinese students. The administration has mostly talked about national security and stealing intellectual property in the past, but Trump’s recent comments seem to be more polite and focused on the economy. This could be because the US and China are still negotiating trade deals.