What Will It Take For Trump To Suspend Chinese Student Visas?

How many Chinese nationals with access to America’s university system have to be prosecuted before President Trump shuts off their ability to attend such institutions?

It’s a question worth asking given the recurring nature of these individuals being charged by U.S. officials for alleged actions that could harm the security and national interests of the United States.

On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that Youhuang Xiang, a J-1 visa holder and post-doctoral researcher from China, has been “charged with smuggling Escherichia coli (E. coli) into the U.S. and making false statements about it.” Xiang was conducting post-doctoral research at Indiana University.

“This is yet another example of a researcher from China – given the privilege to work at a U.S. university – who then allegedly chose to take part in a scheme to circumvent U.S. laws and receive biological materials hidden in a package originating from China,” the FBI director said in an X post.

According to the Washington Examiner, “The Food and Drug Administration says certain types of E. coli can be life-threatening, leading to kidney failure or the development of high blood pressure, in addition to contaminating meat and crops.” In addressing the latter point, Patel said that such biological materials could “inflict devastating disease to U.S. crops and cause significant financial loss to the U.S. economy.”

Friday’s announcement came more than a month after the Justice Department charged two Chinese nationals with “conspiracy to smuggle biological materials into the United States.” A third was charged with providing false statements to U.S. border officials. Similar to Xiang’s situation, these individuals were “conducting research” at the University of Michigan.

Patel concluded his Friday statement by advising American colleges to “be vigilant of this trend” after noting “[t]he FBI will not tolerate any attempt to exploit our nation’s institutions for illegal activity.” But it’s hard to take the administration’s warnings seriously when Trump is insistent on granting hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals access to these premier research institutions every year.

Despite regularly professing to support an “America First” agenda that prioritizes U.S. national interests, Trump has repeatedly defended allowing Chinese nationals to study and conduct research at American universities since returning to office.

One of the most recent examples came during a November interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, who pressed Trump on how such a policy can be considered “pro-MAGA” given that it boxes out American students and comes with major national security risks. The president’s answer was anything but convincing.

“We do have a lot of people coming in from China. We always have, China and other countries. We also have a massive system of colleges and universities. And if we were to cut that in half, which perhaps makes some people happy, you would have half the colleges in the United States would go out of business,” Trump claimed. “[Y]ou don’t want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country, destroy our entire university and college system. I don’t want to do that.”

The president’s response is problematic for several reasons.

For one, it completely ignores the serious national security concerns that come with admitting hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals to American colleges — concerns that his own administrations have raised. As The Federalist previously reported, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has abused America’s student visa system to conduct espionage and intellectual property theft in the United States.

The second reason — which Ingraham homed in on — is that it’s dismissive of the fact that these foreign nationals are displacing American students from their own country’s top colleges.

Even if the president’s prediction about nationwide disruption to the university system were true, there is nothing “MAGA” or “America First” about replacing hard-working Americans with foreign nationals — especially those from a nation whose government is actively seeking to undermine the United States.

More to the point, if colleges did close as a result of cutting off the CCP’s access to America’s university system, so what?

Many of these institutions have become ideological hiveminds that prioritize left-wing and anti-American indoctrination over effectively educating students. They’ve also spent decades discriminating against white and Asian Americans students.

Importing Chinese nationals as a means of keeping their doors open is totally nonsensical.

It’s true that not every Chinese national studying at an American university is a willing accomplice of the Chinese government. But until the CCP forgoes exploiting America’s education system to advance interests counter to those of the United States, there is zero reason the Trump administration should even consider granting their students or researchers access to its universities.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood