Trump’s Trojan Horse: 600,000 Chinese Students to Bail Out the Ivory Tower Bubble, By Chris Knight (Florida)

Late last year President Donald Trump dropped a policy bombshell that could make even his MAGA base do a double-take: Let's crank up the visa pipeline for Chinese students to a whopping 600,000 a year. Why? To keep America's bloated university system from imploding like a house of cards in a windstorm. In ainterview, Trump laid it bare: "We also have a massive system of colleges and universities. And if we were to cut that in half... you would have half the colleges in the United States would go out of business." He's not wrong about the finances — universities are hooked on full-price foreign tuition like a junkie on fentanyl. But in his rush to play saviour to the corrupt academy, Trump's handing the keys to the kingdom to the CCP's junior varsity spies. This isn't America First; it's Beijing's backdoor bonus. And it flies in the face of the free-market Darwinism that should let these debt-fuelled dinosaurs go extinct.

Let's unpack the folly. Right now, the U.S. slurps in about 300,000 Chinese students annually — more than any other nationality. They're not here for Shakespeare seminars; 20.4% (that's 165,524 in 2024 alone) dive straight into STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT), the loophole that lets them work post-graduation, often undercutting American wages in tech and engineering. Universities love it: These kids pay sticker price — no financial aid, no haggling — raking in billions to subsidise the American kids buried under $1.7 trillion in student loans. Cut that off, and poof: Half the colleges shutter, per Trump's own maths. Elite Ivies in blue bubbles cluster these cash cows in coastal enclaves, jacking up rents and tuition wars, while mid-tier schools in flyover country cling to survival. It's a Ponzi scheme on steroids: Borrow from Beijing to fund woke indoctrination at home.

But here's the rub — the controversy Trump's ignoring like a bad tweet. Months back, the spy scandals exploded: Chinese students caught red-handed swiping semiconductor secrets at Purdue, harassing dissidents on campuses from Harvard to UCLA, and funnelling research back to the PLA via WeChat group chats. The CCP doesn't send these kids empty-handed; they're wired with mandates to surveil, censor, and steal. Universities? Complicit as hell. Administrators turn a blind eye because losing that tuition tsunami means layoffs, program cuts, and angry donors. Decades of lax policy let China embed networks — diplomats posing as "cultural attaches," student orgs doubling as intimidation squads. Trump's own first term cracked down with visa revocations and Huawei bans, yet now he's reversing course? It's like building a wall, then handing out ladders to the cartel.

This isn't just security theatre gone wrong; it's economic suicide. Those 600,000 visas? They'll flood elite programs, elbow out American applicants, and ship home PhDs primed to turbocharge Huawei and TikTok's parent company. OPT turns them into cheap labour pipelines, depressing wages for U.S. grads in fields we can't afford to lose. And culturally? It's a mismatch. Prioritise kids from allies — England, France, Poland, Germany, even Mexico or Canada — who share our values, not those reciting Xi Jinping thought at orientation. Foreign relations 101: Invite friends, not foes who bite the hand that visas them.

Worse, Trump's propping up a system rotten to the core. America's universities aren't meritocracies; they're grievance factories churning out $200,000 sociology majors who can't change a tire. Administrative bloat rivals the federal government — more deans than drill sergeants — while tuition skyrockets 1,000% since 1980. Free-market logic screams for creative destruction: Let the weak fail, force innovation, slash the fat. Darwinian selection isn't cruelty; it's clarity. Why bail out these dinosaurs with Chinese cash when we could unleash apprenticeships, trade schools, and online certs that actually build wealth? Trump's "university system" isn't sacred; it's a sacred cow we've overfed on subsidies and scams.

The irony burns. Trump, the disruptor-in-chief, the guy who torched trade deals with China, now feeds the beast he once starved. It's folly wrapped in pragmatism: Save the colleges today, pay the piper in IP theft and influence ops tomorrow. The real America First move? Slam the visa spigot, deport the spies, and let the market cull the herd. Half the colleges folding? Good riddance — room for real education to rise. Otherwise, we're not propping up universities; we're subsidising our own subversion. Beijing thanks you, Don. The rest of us? We'll be left holding the bill — and the bugged laptop.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-let-600000-chinese-students-prop-universities