White House will not increase Chinese student visas

"President Trump isn't proposing an increase in student visas for Chinese students. The 600k references two years worth of visas. It's simply a continuation of existing policy," a White House spokesperson said.

During the question period in the Oval Office with Lee, Trump told reporters, "We're going to allow—it's very important, 600,000 students. It's very important. But we're going to get along with China."

When Trump made the earlier statement, it appeared that the country was on a path to more than double the number of Chinese student visas that are issued in the upcoming year. Currently, there are 270,000 Chinese students who are studying in American colleges.

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick had justified the move in an appearance on The Ingraham Angle, saying "The president's point of view," Lutnick explained, "is that what would happen if you didn't have those 600,000 students is that you've emptied them from the top, all the students would go up to better schools, and the bottom 15% of universities and colleges would go out of business in America. So his view is, he's taking a rational economic view which is classic Donald Trump, looking at higher education, saying until we modify that—"

Lutnick was cut off by Ingraham, who said, "That just helps Harvard and UCLA and UCal Berkeley and—y'all helping those schools, why? They're like, you know, basically factories of anti-American propaganda."

After Trump made the comments earlier this week, it was not just Ingraham who pushed back.

Ally to the president, Laura Loomer, posted to X, "Given the fact that the Department of Defense just had to publicly admit that Chinese nationals have had access to DOD cyber systems for the last 10 years (which should be a massive scandal), why are we giving 600,000 Chinese students visas?"

Conservative commentator Emerald Robinson also weighed in, writing, "Nobody voted for Trump to allow 600,000 Chinese students to replace your kids in American schools and colleges."

Many others in the president's usual base of support were also critical after the initial announcement.