America's Addiction to Chinese Money ｜ 11⧸13⧸25
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Summary
In a recent interview, President Trump defended his earlier claim that bringing 600,000 Chinese college students into the United States would be good for the country. When the interviewer questioned how that aligned with an American First agenda, Trump replied that without those students, half the colleges in America would go out of business.
Transcript
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In a recent interview, President Trump defended his earlier claim that bringing 600,000 Chinese
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college students into the United States would be good for the country. When the interviewer questioned
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how that aligned with an American First agenda, Trump replied that without those students,
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half the colleges in America would go out of business. To most Trump supporters, that sounds
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like a win-win. Fewer foreign students and fewer left-wing universities to subsidize. But Trump
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seemed to view the issue as a business transaction. Closing locations is bad, losing revenue is bad,
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and the substance of those economic units, well, that doesn't really matter. His comments revealed
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a deeper confusion about what America First actually means. America's relationship with China has long
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been incoherent. Every Republican politician insists that China is our chief geopolitical rival,
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a totalitarian power bent on unseating the United States as the global hegemon. Yet few make any effort
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to restrict Chinese immigration, investment, or influence. At some point, it becomes difficult to
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take any of the rhetoric seriously. Look, the problem is obvious. China has too many people and too much
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money. The country's strength lies in what America abandoned, manufacturing. While American corporations
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chased financial gimmicks chased financial gimmicks and the service economy, China focused on making
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tangible goods at scale. That discipline built a vast middle class and positioned Beijing at the
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center of global production. Now nearly every Western industry, film, retail, education, depends on
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access to Chinese markets. The result? American institutions bend over backwards to please a government they
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claim to fear. Chinese nationals can buy land, start companies, and enroll by the hundreds of
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thousands in U.S. universities. It would be funny if it wasn't so corrupt. Trump knows mass immigration
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hurts Americans, but he struggles to say no when the big money is involved. Foreign students pour
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billions into the university system and administrators have built their entire business model around them.
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But counting up dollars isn't the same as serving the national interest.
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Universities are publicly subsidized and supposedly dedicated to educating Americans first and
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foremost. Instead, they've turned into pipelines for credentialing foreign elites, and sometimes even
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spies. Every seat filled by a Chinese student is one less for an American, and every dollar that props
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up a hostile regime's protégés deepens our dependence on that regime. In the United States, the university
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system has become the mechanism by which we sort people into our ruling elite class. If we're sorting
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more and more Chinese nationals into those positions, they'll be the only ones who can take over tech
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firms or qualify to move into academia. That puts Chinese citizens in the perfect space to steal our
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technology or wreck the things that our country is trying to do. It's a threat to national security.
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I mean, the Department of Justice just charged three Chinese nationals at the University of Michigan
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for smuggling research materials and stealing technology. Eric Weinstein has even claimed that
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theoretical physics is being throttled for fear of espionage by foreign actors. Yet the universities,
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and now apparently Trump, seem unfazed. As long as the money flows, that's all that matters.
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Propping up higher education with Chinese cash isn't just short-sighted, it's insane. Colleges and universities
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have become leftist seminaries, charging astronomical tuitions for courses that teach Americans to despise
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their parents and hate their nation. They already receive lavish government subsidies, and still, they demand
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more. Trump's claim that half the colleges would collapse without Chinese money is dubious, but even if it was
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true, those institutions then deserved to fail. Let them. Destroying the patronage network that produces
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radical activists was once a Trumpian goal. Reviving them with foreign money would be an act of political
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masochism. Why would we play Russian roulette with our own national security just to pad the bottom line
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of leftist institutions? Look, Chinese money poisons far more than just academia. Nationals and shell
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companies routinely buy American land, including, alarmingly, property near military bases. One
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recent purchase of an RV park in Missouri by a Chinese couple just happened to place them next to
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Whiteman Air Force Base, home of the B-2 stealth bomber fleet. Similar shadowy transactions dot the map.
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The pandemic exposed the madness of this dependence. The same regime that unleashed a virus on the world
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also controlled the supply chains for the medicine and protective gear that you needed to fight it.
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Yet America's political class still refuses to sever the tie. They're too addicted to Chinese money and
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too invested in pretending that dependency equals diplomacy. If the GOP is in any way serious about
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confronting China, it must start by cutting every cord of reliance. Banning Chinese students from U.S.
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universities would be a simple, symbolic first step. And it has the massive upside of striking
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directly at the heart of the progressive academic machine.
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