During his recent trip to China, President Trump was asked in an interview about the roughly 500,000 to 600,000 Chinese students currently enrolled at American universities. This was his response. “As far as the students, it’s 500k students, they come, they’re good students. I could tell them I don’t want any students, it’s a very insulting thing to say to a country…but if you don’t have those students, good students by the way…but if you want to see a university system die, take half a million students out of it… I frankly think that it’s good that people come from other countries, and they learn our culture and many of them want to stay here. I think it’s good. Not everybody agrees with me, and it doesn’t sound like a very conservative position, and I'm a conservative guy, but I’m really a common sense guy, I think more than a conservative guy, I think MAGA is common sense…So they have 500k students and our university system does great.”

His answer reflected an admirable strategy: cultural exchange can showcase American greatness, build goodwill, and potentially cultivate future allies who return home with a favorable impression of the United States. As a practitioner of foreign policy, I can understand this instinct. But as a Gen Z student and then professor who has lived this reality on today’s college campuses, I must respectfully point out that Trump’s advisors have misinformed him. What is happening is not cultural exchange. It is an invasion of influence that harms American students, compromises academic standards, distorts the labor market, and creates genuine national security risks. This is not an........

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