Trump told reporters at the White House that day, "I've heard a lot of stories that we're not letting their (Chinese) students in, we're going to let their students in. It's very important, 600,000 students. It's very important. But we will get along well with China."
If Trump's target of 600,000 students is realized, it will set a record for Chinese students in the US. The 2019 Open Doors Report shows that the number of international students at US universities has exceeded one million for four consecutive years. China remains the largest source of international students in the US, with 369,548 students in the 2018/19 academic year. This number declined after the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently, there are approximately 270,000 Chinese students studying at US universities.
In the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the visas of more than 4,000 foreign students with criminal records, on charges ranging from arson to drunk driving.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also attempted to forcibly cancel more than 7,000 visas held by international students at Harvard University, but was blocked by a federal court. Nevertheless, Trump told reporters in June that he had “always supported” welcoming Chinese students.
Trump's proposal to expand visas for Chinese students comes against the backdrop of ongoing trade negotiations with China. Last week, he proposed imposing a 200% tariff on Chinese-made magnets, citing China's "monopoly" of global markets.
During a meeting with visiting South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on Monday, Trump said, "They (China) have to give us magnets. If they don't give us magnets... we'll have to impose a 200% tariff on them or something, but we (the US and China) won't have any problems."
Trump stated, "The world could have had many other directions for (rare earth magnets), but so far, it will probably take us about a year to achieve that. We are currently working deeply into the magnet field, just from a national security perspective, but we have something powerful."
Trump also mentioned the U.S. decision to block the export of Boeing aircraft parts to China, saying that due to China's policy on rare earth magnet exports, the U.S. did not provide Boeing components to China, which at one point caused 200 Chinese aircraft to be unable to fly.
Trump said, "I could have stopped them. But I didn't because of my relationship with them (the US and China). And now they're flying. Their planes are flying now."
Trump continued, "So we didn't get (the magnet), but we have something much stronger: that's tariffs. If we wanted to impose tariffs on China at 100%, 200%, we wouldn't do any business with China."
In addition, Trump told reporters that he had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping “recently” and said that “at some point, maybe this year or shortly thereafter, we will go to China.”
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